For many high schoolers, playing on varsity football is a goal. But it’s a process. And one of the hardest parts is playing away games. It’s not just the playing part that’s hard on the road, it’s how you get to that point, it’s how you get to the field.

For road games, the Carlsbad High School football team must leave class early. While this seems nice, it comes with some downsides.

“We usually leave class around 2:00 to 3:00 depending on how far the games are away from us.” Freshman Wyatt Heath said

“On the away games, we usually don’t get home until 9:00. So it sometimes causes me not to get all the homework in that I am supposed to that day.” Heath said.

Since football takes up so much of the player’s time, it’s difficult for them to balance their schedule accordingly so that they are able to complete all of their assignments and that they don’t fall behind in academics. In order to play sports in high school, you must have a GPA of at least 2.0.

“It usually takes about 30 minutes to an hour to get to the other team stadiums.” Heath said.

For long road trips such as going to Lakewood High School which can take up to 2 hours, the players have different ways of passing their time. Some of those ways include socializing and listening to music to get pumped up.

“For long trips, I usually talk to my friends and I’m usually listening to music and getting into my football mindset.” said Heath

At Carlsbad High School, they have lockers for the players. So when CHS walks into the locker room, it feels normal, it feels like home because it’s a familiar scene. But when you play on the road, even the little things like lockers can make it feel different..

“For away games, we usually don’t have lockers, and it throws me off sometimes with putting my stuff where I want it to be and making sure that I have all my stuff at the end of the game.” Heath said

Since freshman football doesn’t play in front of the loud crowd, many people would think that playing at home or on the road doesn’t affect the players. But really, it changes their mindset and makes them want to play even better than they did before.

“Not playing at my home field doesn’t really affect me,” Heath said, “but it does give me a mental note that we have the privilege to win against our opponent at their home field.”