A growing trend for student athletes is to participate in sports that are not affiliated with Saint Paul Academy and Summit School. Freshman soccer player Cara Pomerantz thinks that sports outside of school offer “a way to separate [herself] from school friends and meet new people. It also takes up less of my time.” Many other students take advantage of sports outside of school to step up their game off season and to make friends outside of the SPA community.

SPA offers 21 school sports and they get a lot of recognition. But students play the very same sports outside of school, sometimes recreationally, and sometimes at very high levels. Outside of school sports have a different atmosphere than in school sports, and that is a driving reason students participate in them.

Freshman Jackson Jewett decided to play outside of school sports instead of in school sports. This year, Jewett decided to play hockey for a club team rather than the SPA team. Hockey is a big sport at SPA and students of all grade levels participate in it. In Jewett’s case, club hockey “lets me have more playing time, and it’s also really fun. It will get me ready to play for school next year.” As a freshman, he felt like he could reach his potential more by participating in his Highland Central team.

A wide spectrum of students have the desire to play college athletics. To help them achieve their goal, they play for special club teams. These people are not eligible to play during the high school season because they play for elite teams. The soccer club Minnesota Thunder Academy has “academy” teams that are elite.  These club teams allow for college scouting.

Senior Sam Forsgren plays for one of these teams and says that they are different from SPA soccer because “our practices are very different. Varsity practices were a good time, but the amount of competition and intensity at my academy practices is really demanding physically and mentally.”

Just like other students, he really enjoyed getting to know people outside of school through his soccer team. Although he really enjoys academy, he does admit that “I missed playing for SPA a lot. Although the level of play isn’t comparable to academy, its a lot of fun to play with your classmates.”

SPA has such a wide variety of athletes. Students can choose whether they are active in sports inside or outside of school.  These opportunities are not only avaliable for hockey and soccer players, but also for athletes that compete in any sport.