RAM-NATION ARE YOU READY?  The dark ages have officially ended. Saturdays and Sundays once again have a purpose; football has begun.

Fall brings back Halloween Horror Nights, pumpkin spice lattes, cool-ish weather and best of all; college and NFL football. Sadly though, fall also means we are in the midst of a new school year with endless hours of homework over the weekend. The die-hard high school football fan knows all too well the feeling of having to write a history essay while your favorite team is fighting to the end out on the field.

According to a study done in March 2014 conducted by Stanford, the amount of homework a student receives causes health issues, a large increase in stress, and causes students to not pursue other activities due to lack of time. The researches came to the conclusion that “This kind of busy work, by its very nature, discourages learning and instead promotes doing homework simply to get points.” Adding football to the mix will only make these feelings much worse.

The weekends are meant to be relaxing times for students and adding more homework doesn’t necessarily even equate to higher achievement. A Duke University study showed that homework does help improve student’s performances, but excessive amounts is counterproductive. Students should be allowed the weekend without the stress of homework as a reward for going through five rigorous days of the week, especially if homework over the weekend doesn’t wreak benefits. Sophomore, Kai Patricelli says “Homework sucks on the weekend because I don’t get to watch my favorite team play. If there was no homework I would have less stress and be able to enjoy my weekend and watch great games.”

One way to fix this problem would be to eliminate homework over the weekend, or at least the weekends from September to February. Football may not teach you the proper way to solve a quadratic equation, but it does teach fans values. Sophomore, Joseph Bartolotta says “What I have learned from football is to never give up, even if you are down by 15+ points, you can still win. You just have to believe.” Hopefully, one weekend all student football fans will be free of homework and can relax while watching their favorite team play. May you and your team have a great 2016 football season!