Peter+Lee+Project

__**PETER's PROJECT**__
//Question: What is the Opportunity Cost of playing on the KIS Boys' Basketball Varsity Team?//

When I got this question, I decided to combine two things that I love: Basketball and Economy!

And being on the boys basketball varsity team, I decided to explore the opportunity cost and possibilities of what I could do instead of playing basketball throughout the whole year.



__Background Information__

So... what is opportunity cost? According to Dictionary.com, opportunity cost is "the cost of an alternative that must be forgone in order to pursue a certain action. Put another way, the benefits you could have received by taking an alternative action."

So, let's say that you had to go to the library last night to study for a test next week. What are some examples of an opportunity cost?
 * You could've watched a movie with your friends
 * You could've gone working and gotten some money
 * Sleep
 * Watched the basketball game on TV
 * Learned something else

The point is, an opportunity cost is the next best thing that you could've done in your time. The biggest one is **__TIME.__**


 * The basketball season of KIS is in the winter, lasting 3.5 months of the year, starting from the beginning of November until mid-to-late February.
 * Practices are Tuesday through Friday from 3-5 PM.
 * There are 14 games in the regular season. Games are on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, and on weekdays, they last from 3 PM to 7 PM. On Saturdays, they last from 8 AM to 1 PM.
 * Traveling time to and from home and road games.
 * KAIAC Tournament
 * Far East tournament

As a student-athlete, it is imperative to study, especially in a school like KIS, where school rules all.

So here's how this will go:

I. About how many hours do we give into the varsity basketball team during the season? II. Fatigue Factor III. How it affects Student Life IV. Conclusion


 * I. Calculating the Time Given**

When people say that basketball players give a lot of time to their seasons, they're not lying.

There are three big time killers during basketball season: practices, games, and tournaments.

__Practices__

School ends at 2:45 PM, and I arrive at home at around 3:30-3:40 PM everyday if I don't have a basketball practice. If I do have practices, then I get home at around 5:30-5:40 PM. So every practice costs about 2 hours, which actually is even more than 2 hours (see later).

So let's think about it: Tryouts started on November 4th, 2008. From November 4th, 2008, to about February 13th, 2009, there were approximately 28 practices.

28 practices * 2 hours per practice = 56 hours.
 * //__Practices equate to about 56 hours of time given in.__//**

__Games__



There are 14 regular season games and 1 friendly game. Since there are 8 teams in Division I of KAIAC. And since we are one of them, that means we play 7 opponents twice each during the season (hence, 14 games), one road and one home.

The one friendly game this season was at home, so in the end, there were 7 road games and 8 home games. The big thing about road games is that transportation to most of the schools takes a while. Except for 2 schools, bus transportation takes at least an hour, even longer if we're traveling to an American base.

Let's say home games are about 4.5 hours long, because the girls' game goes first, which takes about 1.5 hours. Then after about 30 minutes, another 1.5 hours for the guys game. After that, taking a shower, getting dressed, going home, and eating something takes anywhere from one hour to one hour and a half.

So 15 games * 4.5 hours per game = 67.5 hours __//**Games equate to about 67.5 hours of time given in.**//__

__Tournaments__



There are two main tournaments each season: the KAIAC Tournament, and Far East Tournament.

At the end of the regular season, there is a KAIAC Tournament, where, like the NCAA Tournament Big Dance, teams are seeded according to their record. All the teams meet in one school and play a double-elimination round.

It takes 2 days, one Friday and the Saturday after, in which teams play until they're eliminated. But even if a team is eliminated, the team is obligated to stay until the awards ceremony.

All in all, the tournament basically sucks up all day of school on Friday, and the whole day on Saturday.

Then, there's the Far East Tournament. That tournament is located in an army base, which means Taco Bell and other good American food! But in terms of opportunity cost, and this year, it took 5 whole days in Japan until it was over. which is a whole topic by itself.

__//**Tournaments this year equated to nearly a week of our time.**//__

__Conclusion of TIME given during the season__

In addition to the 1 week of tournaments, the 56 hours and 67.5 hours equal to 123.5 hours, which is 5.15 days.


 * __II. FATIGUE Factor__**



As a student, during the season, time to do all schoolwork decreases drastically.

Although I said above that basketball practice takes up 2 hours of my time, in any given school day, it is actually a number that can be amplified, depending on the person.

Although it may vary for each person, my weekday bedtime is around 12 PM. So after two hours of practice, eating dinner, I usually start homework at about 6:30 PM, as opposed to a regular weekday, where I would start homework by 4 PM.

BUT WAIT! That's not all!

Although I want to start homework at 6:30 PM, most times, it's pretty hard to actually start at 6:30 PM. After running suicides, laps, and just running around for 2 hours, fatigue starts to become a factor.

After surfing the web, lying down, watching TV, and/or taking a short nap, homework time actually starts closer to 7:30 to 8 PM. This is when my mind is more rested and my body feels capable of doing the homework needed.

The same goes for games. Games make me sometimes even more tired than practices, because I give perhaps even more effort diving for balls, chasing around people, playing defense, etc.

//Why is this important?//

Because although practices / games last only 2 hours and 4.5 hours respectively, this intangible fatigue factor actually amplifies the amount of practice time to about 3.5 hours to 5.5 hours respectively.

__**III. How It Affects Student Life**__

Basically, there's four big parts of schoolwork that the basketball season affects: homework, group projects, tests, and classwork. In short, everything.

Why?

As stated above, homework time is reduced drastically. This carries over to class. When the amount of sleep decreases, we feel more tired in the day after, resulting in poorer performances in class. Thus, our classwork is affected negatively.

Group projects, which are pretty prevalent in KIS, would become more difficult because time is so short. Sunday and Monday would be the only truly free days.

And tests, obviously, because of not only time, but more importantly, because people are more fatigued and can't concentrate or focus well.

During the Far East and KAIAC Tournaments, 6 days of school are missed, which means that a large pile of homework and classwork is given while on our trip, which no one honestly does until they come back. Almost every class has a test or quiz, some classes both, which all needs to be made up upon our return.

After polling much of the basketball team, the average GPA of a varsity basketball student dropped (although I'm not 100% that they were telling the truth). Here's a chart of the average GPA at the end of each month of the boys' basketball varsity team:


 * Month || GPA ||
 * November || 3.07 ||
 * December || 3.03 ||
 * January || 2.96 ||
 * February || 2.15 ||
 * March || 2.98 ||

As you can see, for all four months, the average GPA fell consistently. Although February wasn't a good sample, because it was a new semester, meaning that all grades were new, and because of the Far East and KAIAC Tournaments, we missed about 6 days of school.

Here's a short video of some interviews I did with some of the guys on the team: media type="file" key="Final Project.mov"

__**IV. Conclusion**__

In conclusion, being on the basketball team requires a lot of time and commitment from each and every player. Although the amount of time is "only" about 12 days, in reality, every member of that team devoted 3.5 months of their year to the team.

Citations: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/opportunity%20cost

Mankiw, Gregory N. __Principles of Economics__. Fourth ed. Mason: Harvard University, 2007.
Photos: http://www.aa.psu.edu/sports/mbasketball/images/bball.jpg http://blog.syracuse.com/orangebasketball/2008/02/large_supractice.jpg http://www.kis.or.kr/image/main_image_c01.jpg http://kaiac.org/Newspic/Seal_small.jpg http://linzworld.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/tired-student.jpg