The common student mantra, “don’t worry, dude, grades don’t matter until high school,” has been furthermore emphasized this year.

New regulations regarding athletes’ grades and attendance have been put in place this year at the high school.  If an athlete does not have passing grades in their classes, or if they do not attend their classes regularly, they are no longer allowed to play.

Reasoning behind the policy change is clear.

“All athletes here are students first, and athletes second,” said Athletics Director, Ricky Michael.  “If kids are giving their best on the field, they should be giving the same amount of effort in the classroom.”

The change will hopefully prepare future athletes for college.

“It’s going to help students realize that beyond high school, all colleges have some sort of grade policy in athletics.  Theirs will be much stricter, but here, we’ll just have a policy that failing is unacceptable.”

Coaches are not asking for perfection from their athletes, but would rather just like to see them succeed in academics as well as sports.

“We’re not asking them to get A’s and B’s,” said Michael.  “Students just need passing grades.  If a student attends class, hands in their work, and studies hard, there’s not a teacher out there that would fail them.  It’s a reasonable request.”

In some cases, the regulation can set teams back.

“If a player isn’t able to practice because they’re failing a class, it hurts the team because the person replacing them isn’t as skilled a player,” said junior Devin Cates, a wing for the varsity hockey team.

Though this rule may be a detriment to a handful of students, some are using it as newfound motivation.

“It’s a good way to get kids who play sports to focus on other things, like homework,” said junior Sarah Lund.  “It will make them try harder on and off the field.”

Lund figure skates, but skating is not a school sport, therefore the rule does not affect her.  However, for her friends, it is a different story.

“My close friend is a swimmer for the school,” said Lund.  “She used to not try at all; just kind of float through the school day and just not care.  But now, she has so much motivation to try hard and she always gets her homework in on time.  Sure, it might take time away from us hanging out, and I miss that, but if swimming is something she loves, then I suppose it’s all worth it.”

Overall, students seem to be responding fairly well to the new regulations.  Given time, Stillwater sports teams could be the sharpest around.