Saint Louis High School has many sports available for its athletes to participate in, and any of these sports take place during the same seasons. The small school size here makes it challenging to fill all the rosters of the sports available. So, a few of the athletes each season choose to participate in two sports at once. This Is referred to as dual sporting. During the winter season, multiple athletes are participating in both wrestling and basketball. Two of these athletes are Rj Macias and Josh Dew. Maria Soto is also partaking in poms, wrestling, and powerlifting as tri-sport athlete as well.

The task of dual sporting is not an easy one as it requires a lot of determination and commitment to not one but two teams, as well as balancing academic work with two practice times. Dual sporting is both mentally and physically demanding for the athletes who choose to do it. 

Macias said, “The biggest challenge of dual sporting is probably going from one practice to another. It is pretty easy because the events are on different days. I choose which one I feel I need more help with, like learning plays in basketball.” 

Dew stated for him, “ The biggest challenge is maintaining my body at a high level to perform and stay healthy as training and back-to-back games and meets can be vigorous at times. So managing my time to allow recovery and setting time aside to stay up to pace with school academics. Attending practices isn’t hard at all since wrestling is right after school and basketball can be a mix of both after-school and being later in the evening. However, if I’m going to miss a practice I get an extra workout in the morning or late at night to make up for lost time. Basketball is my primary sport, so I’m expected to be at all practices and games unless a wrestling meet falls on basketball practice.  The decision to dual sport isn’t easy but can certainly be done. I’m glad to be able to compete in both sports and build on the culture for our school.” 

Dual Sporting is becoming a common occurrence at Saint Louis High School with the number of sports available increasing and the number of athletes decreasing.