Pranathi Sudharshan is taking on challenges on and off the court. While managing numerous different sports she also finds a way to spend time with her friends and do her schoolwork. She manages staying eligible in sports as well as getting first place at nationals for taekwondo. Sudharshan works hard in everything she does to excel and inspire others.

Q: What sports do you play?

A: In school I played tennis and out of school I do taekwondo, swim and cricket.

Q: What kind of dance do you do?

A: I do Indian classical dance.

Q: How do sports affect your school life?

A: Especially because I am a freshman, tennis season this year was harder for me, I feel like, because I wasn’t used to coming home so late and doing homework so late, It just stressed me out and I would procrastinate sometimes and I would have to wake up early in the mornings to do it, so I would have to wake up at 5 sometimes to finish homework that I didn’t finish the night before.

Q: How have you managed getting your school work done and staying eligible while also playing sports?

A: I use my planner a lot and I just organize my week and use my Sundays, if I don’t have anything, to get ahead on work for the week and I do work whenever I can just so that I don’t fall behind.

Q: In what ways have school and sports affected your relationships with your friends and getting to spend time with them?

A: It affects it because I can’t really spend time with my friends after school because I always have practice but now that the season is over I can spend time with my friends after school.

Q: How do your friends help you through everything?

A:  When I miss class my friends help me a lot because they tell me what we did in class

Q: In what ways would you change how you manage everything and how you relieve stress?

A: I would change, like, being more time oriented because I take quite awhile to do things to make them perfect and so I feel like that slows me down. Something I do to relieve stress is read and I want to read more.

Q: What are you excited for with the upcoming swim season?

A: A lot of my friends are swimming with me, some that I convinced to do it with me and some that I did swim with over the summer.

Q: What is the most fun thing about high school sports and playing them?

A:The things you get to do out of practices like team dinners and after games we would go to get food or we would have potlucks. I feel like that was fun because I got really close with a lot of girls on the team and they are all older than me so they help me in school, with classes.

Q: What do you do outside of school to help relieve stress?

A: I like to hangout with my friends, that helps a lot, and my family and I like to cook because I cook lunch for me and my brother everyday or I like to just hangout in my room.

Q: How does your family inspire and help you throughout everything and keep you motivated?

A: My family has always been there for me and supported whatever sport I have wanted to do, even though I do so many, they drive me to practices and games and I feel like they really do support me because without their help, for example I left my water bottle somewhere and my mom brought me four other water bottles, and so I feel like the small things that they do are important and they always help when I need it.

Q: In what ways have you been set back in sports or had a mental block?

A: Sometimes I get stressed about having tournaments for taekwondo a lot and haven’t been able to go to taekwondo because of tennis so I had a tournament in Reno a few weeks ago and was really stressed about that because I hadn’t been able to go train like usual and I still won but I still didn’t get to train how I wanted to so I feel like I didn’t put my best out.

Q: How do you get over those mental blocks?

A:  I like to train my brother in taekwondo when I can’t train myself and being around people who understand how it feels to maybe not win and I try not to let it get to me if I don’t win.

by ADDYSON CREAGER