By Wynne ‘26
One of the best things about being a Harvard-Westlake student is being able to participate in a lot of great extracurricular activities. Among them are our school’s excellent athletics programs. We have a large variety of sports teams, including baseball, basketball, cross country, fencing, field hockey, football, golf, lacrosse, soccer, tennis, volleyball, water polo, and wrestling, just to name a few.
Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a lot of the athletics leagues in California to temporarily shut down. While that has been a huge disappointment to many of our athletes, and to us new seventh graders who were looking forward to trying out new sports, Harvard-Westlake has come up with a great solution. Our school offers rotating socially distanced athletics clinics on Saturdays in basketball, cross-country, football, swimming, soccer, and volleyball.
The clinics allow us to experience each of the sports at least a little bit. They help us to keep up our skills in the sports that we already do, and to stay in good condition. However, the thing that I like best is that we get to explore new sports at the clinics. I played lacrosse and basketball in elementary school, but I have been going to the cross country clinics at Harvard-Westlake. They have been great. We are learning good running form and practicing a lot of running to increase our endurance. Our coaches have also started to teach us some of the regular track & field skills. I like trying both of these sports and learning about them.
The athletics clinics are also a good way to meet new people, which is important for a seventh grader. One of my new Harvard-Westlake friends and I go to the same clinic every other week, and it is fun to get to hang out with each other. It is also great that the clinics give us chances be outside and get some fresh air at our school campus, since we do not get to do that much right now.
Harvard-Westlake’s athletics clinics have been a good response to all of the restrictions that have been put on school sports programs. We have a safe way to go to campus, train with our coaches and classmates, and experience a small part of Harvard-Westlake during these unusual times. I am looking forward to going to future clinics, continuing my training after the pandemic ends, and being on the track & field and cross country teams next school year.
