SETTING A NEW

Setting a New Standard

by Ammar Hussain & Caroline Cubbin design by Loukas Bezanis Newly-formed group aims to promote healthy lifestyle skills among student-athletes.

Chris Robinson walks into the health room on a chilly January morning. After everyone takes their seats, Robinson and his fellow students promptly begin their discussion. The topic for today: nutrition and hydration. Robinson and his fellow students sit attentively as P.E. teacher Jason Hayes explains how nutrition and hydration impact performance. Robinson, along with every student there, is a leader of his athletic team at Central and has joined the recently formed group: Red Devil Standard. Red Devil Standard (RDS) was created last year by Hayes and fellow P.E. teacher Lynn Hatzikostantis in order to spread scientific-based information to help the student-athletes and teams at Central. Team captains and other leaders are invited to join the club and participate in meetings where they then learn about a range of topics, including sleep, stress, and diet. Those student-athletes are expected to then pass that information along to their teammates. Current sponsors Hayes and Courtney Wallace prepare presentations on studentselected topics in advance and share guidance to the team leaders. However, students also have the opportunity to give their own personal insight on matters of discussion. Wallace described a typical morning meeting as beginning with a presentation on a topic the members are interested in discussing or learning about, followed by a more logistical discussion in regard to the club’s future. Currently, RDS is looking to grow their club in order to reach more people and get their message out. “It’s really wonderful to watch students become involved and really take ownership over their life. And [within] this group, [they are] trying to help inspire others to live the best they can with regards to nutrition, hydration, sleep, stress management and wanting to help their peers and their teammates,” Wallace said. Hayes explained that he and Hatzikostanis got the idea for starting the club after attending a convention over the summer led by John Underwood, the founder and director of the Life of an Athlete-Human Performance Project. The project is dedicated to producing manuals outlining how to optimize certain aspects of young people’s lives. According to his website, Underwood has experience training and working with Navy SEALS and Olympic athletes, and has dedicated his career to scientificallydriven research on optimizing human performance. Hayes explained that the RDS curriculum is derived directly from Underwood’s research. As a P.E. teacher and coach for wrestling and football, Hayes said he sees how tired and anxious students are at Central and wanted to provide resources to help students perform their best. “It’s a lifestyle,” Hayes said. “We give information to students on scientificbased research and how [they] can implement it into [their] sports programs.” This year, Hatzikostanis is teaching at South, so Hayes teamed up with Wallace to lead the club at Central. According to Hayes, this year the club is focused on teaching members and the rest of the school body about four distinct domains of performance: diet, sleep, nutrition, and anxiety. Hayes also mentioned that while he and Wallace are leading discussions currently, the goal is for RDS to become primarily student-driven in the future. Wallace stressed the importance of information coming from the students themselves. “I find that it’s a lot more meaningful if the message comes from peers,” Wallace said. “Having been a coach [and teacher] for quite a while, you can say something, but when a [peer] says it, it [carries] a different [weight]. When it comes from adults, [students think] ‘They’re harping on us again, They’re so hard on us.’ But when a peer says it, it makes you think ‘Oh my gosh, I wouldn’t want to let anyone down’.” Wallace also mentioned that while the sponsors do play a role in the meetings as well as in more logistical aspects of the club, the most committed members, which according to Wallace is around 10 to 12

students, have made a logo and t-shirt. Sarah Cernugel, senior, was one of the new members who joined RDS this year after taking on a leadership role within her soccer and basketball teams at Central. Cernugel said that while RDS is still figuring out its schedule for the rest of the year, so far one topic she had found very valuable is sleep. According to Cernugel, they examined at an Olympic level how an extra hour of sleep can bridge the split-second difference between a gold and silver medalist. Robinson, who is the captain of the school’s wrestling team, expanded on the idea of the need for better sleep. He explained that while we all know we are supposed to get more sleep, we don’t really understand how much a lack of sleep can affect our ability to function. “We talked [in RDS] about how if you are a competitive athlete, you should really be getting eight to nine hours of sleep. We then brought that [information] to our teams. I talked about how I understand that school is difficult, but we also have to understand that rest is very important [for] sport[s] and for retaining information in school,” Robinson said. Similarly, Katrina Geiersbach, junior and captain of the girls’ water polo team, emphasized the potential she saw in RDS in helping her team improve. “I thought that as a captain it would be really beneficial for us to go and get new ideas and attend some workshops to bring that back,” Geiersbach said. Geiersbach also stressed the importance of the club and explained why it’s important that student-athletes receive this information. According to Geiersbach, she’s seen a sizeable difference in both her performance and her mindset. “I’m a lot more mindful and aware of my actions and I’ve started thinking on behalf of others more than I have been in the past because of this club. I totally think it’s changed my life, [like] what foods I choose to eat, [and] what attitude and mindset I choose to bring to practice,” Geiersbach said. Wallace shared this sentiment, saying that she has already seen a difference in some of the members of the club, especially in terms of their commitment. “Their sheer passion for an interest in creating sound habits has really shown,” Wallace said. Geiersbach mentioned that she saw additional value in joining RDS not only because of the information and resources that it offers, but also because it offered

her a chance, as a team captain, to share new experiences and bond with her team. She also said that because RDS is a leadership and value-based group, it offers a lot of different opportunities for those who don’t have a leadership position on their team. While the water polo season has not started yet, Geiersbach said she is looking forward to sharing new information that she learns from RDS. “I’m really excited to bring everything that I’ve learned in the club to my team and hopefully have other kids on my team join the club,” Geiersbach said. Because Red Devil Standard is a new club, there is still a lot that the athletes and sponsors have to decide about the club’s future. Hayes stressed the importance of building a strong foundation of members who will help spread RDS’s message throughout the school. “We want [RDS to be a club that allows you] to perform at your best, not only athletically, but academically. And we also want this to carry over into the P.E. classes since we’re talking about SEL — Social Emotional Learning. We can network those together,” Hayes said. “[RDS has] taken a while to get going, but hopefully it will take off soon.” Most of the students that were interviewed expressed that they are excited about the information they have learned so far, but like Hayes, they all talked about how they need to grow in order to fulfill their goals as a club of spreading that information throughout the school. Cernugel, in particular, mentioned that while she finds the club to be valuable, she said she also feels that it is important for the club to grow in order to reach its potential. “We’re hoping to get more people to join the club and spread the word. We also hope that people actually take to heart and use the knowledge we’re going to put out — so [that] people start focusing more on limiting their stress and getting more sleep, and seeing how that impacts their performance, not only as an athlete but as a student,” Cernugel said. For that reason, RDS took a field trip in December during the school week to a conference center to participate in a day-long workshop with a number of similar clubs from schools throughout the Chicagoland area. Cernugel explained that while RDS was one of the smaller groups there, they were able to learn a lot of information from other schools on how best to grow the club and disseminate information that will help Central’s athletes perform at a high level. Hayes echoed that idea, pointing toward other schools as an example for what he hopes RDS will become. “There were probably 20 schools there — Buffalo Grove was there, Conant was there — but a lot of them started from ground zero like us. I think Buffalo Grove [started with] five people. Now they are at 80. So [growing the club] just takes time like anything else,” Hayes said. Wallace shared this sentiment and further emphasized the importance of growing the club and spreading the message. “We have been working towards getting the word out that this opportunity exists not just for athletes, but for anyone that would like to make sure that they’re doing the best job they can,” Wallace said. Accordingly, RDS’s first meeting of the second semester was dedicated to brainstorming plans for expanding the club’s outreach. Members proposed and considered various ideas including midgame announcements at sporting events and through Twitter. Last year Hatzikostanis came up with the idea for Thursday Tweets, through which RDS would tweet out important lifestyle information each Thursday, and Hayes said that the club plans on implementing that idea shortly. Additionally, next month RDS plans to speak to the head coaches’ meeting, where every varsity spring sport will be represented. There, they hope to show coaches how the club can benefit their teams, and the members will encourage every coach to invite a few team leaders to join RDS. For those students interested in joining, Red Devil Standard meets twice per month on Friday mornings in the health room. While many RDS members currently have leadership positions within their team, the sponsors have stressed that anyone is welcome to join, whether they are team captains, members of teams, or even non-athletes who are interested in learning more about how to improve their health — no invite necessary. The sponsors and members all made clear that they want to provide a valuable learning experience to any student willing to listen. As Robinson put it, “There are so many things we learn in [RDS] that you can use not only right now, but later on in life. It’s important information that a lot of people should know and you become more well-educated.”

phtoto provided by Lainey Harvey

RDS students discuss goals for their next meeting. From left to right: Sarah Cernugel, Max Pohlend, and Lainey Harvey