Whether in-season or out-of-season, it’s important athletes take care of themselves during the winter months. The cold weather impacts your body by tightening muscles, causing dehydration and, for some, triggering asthma. As the extreme temperatures settle in, use our guide to athletic health care to help athletes prepare their bodies for the cold winter months.

Balancing school and sports is not always easy, but being a scholar athlete at Oak Knoll School of the Holy Child has been one of the most formative and rewarding experiences of my life. A normal night in-season usually consists of me, scrambling to finish what feels like endless homework and studying for my tests and quizzes the next day, after a 2 ½-hour practice at our field complex in Chatham, New Jersey. By the time it reaches midnight, I’m setting an alarm for 6:30 a.m. to do it all again the next day.

When asked what I learned playing private high school sports, I immediately started to smile. My mind was flooded with a lot of amazing memories, great friends and coaches, different games, winning highs and losing lows, all of which shaped me to be the person I am today. I can’t write about all the things I learned playing private high school sports, so I broke it down into four main categories to reflect a few of the lessons learned, including to be respectful and a team player on (and off) the field, how to lose graciously, own up to my mistakes, and to put things into perspective.