On Oct. 21, the 2022 PCM football season ended with a playoff loss to Clear Lake, 28-27. It was a back and forth game until midway through the third quarter when Clear Lake took the lead for the last time. Over the past three years, the earliest a football season ended was Oct. 29, meaning that the players, especially seniors, suddenly had more free time than they were used to before another sport started. With cross country and volleyball ending close to when football did, that suddenly left a large portion of the student body with more time suddenly on their hands.

PCM head football coach Greg Bonnett was aware of this situation and provided insight on the football side as to what players can do to stay busy with football in the offseason.  

“A lot of our football players are in everyday fitness class, which is one day of yoga, three days of lifting and one day of speed and agility, metabolic workouts or more lifting,” Bonnett explained. “For players not in everyday fitness class, which is primarily core lifts and auxiliary lifts because it’s only two to three days a week.”

The following Monday after PCM lost to Clear Lake most football players that were freshman, sophomores, and juniors could be found down on the football field for a short workout, but such workouts are restricted to an extent. 

“Teams that lose in the playoffs can keep practicing all they want up until the state championships are over in November,” Bonnett said. “We haven’t been practicing every day, but we have done little seven on seven scrimmages and some individual position drills here and there.”

Meanwhile, PCM volleyball and cross country athletes have recently finished their seasons as well, meaning that there hasn’t been any real sports going on for the past couple weeks. This week the girl’s basketball team has started official practices. Assistant coach Jason Stock gave insight as to what the players have been doing during this less busy time the past couple weeks. 

“For the past couple of weeks, we have been having a couple of open gym practices in addition to a fall league in Pleasantville, which just ended two weeks ago. We only lost one or two games out of eight,” Stock said. “We usually had every girl that could make it on a given Sunday afternoon.”

Eight tournament games and a few open gym practices is very different from what is coming: a basketball season that will keep everyone busy until at least February. These past couple weeks students haven’t had many commitments for the past few weeks but that is about to change. 

“I feel like in basketball season in particular, there are assignments that need to be done and that makes it so kids have to turn in assignments on game nights so during basketball season students definitely use down time in class and study halls more efficiently.”

All of this sudden business adds to the idea that students are generally more productive when they are busy, which is a big reason why parents want their kids to be involved in school activities. 

“The purpose of school activities is to add stress, but it is good stress,” Stock explained. “It’s not like elementary school where there is recess because in high school, kids want to be more competitive and it can just add to making a competitive nature even after high school.”