Miramonte High School is offering three seasonal lunchtime sports for the 2024-2025 school year. There will be one lunchtime tournament per season, allowing students throughout fall, winter, and spring for all students to compete. 

“We have more lunchtime sports this year to keep students on campus and create fun activities to do during lunch,” Dax Harris, the PE9 and Weightlifting teacher, said. 

The upcoming sporting event for fall is pickleball and the following sporting events for winter and spring have yet to be decided. Pickleball teams can be co-ed and have any grade level. Games will be played two on two with four athletes on a team in case someone is absent or needs a substitute. 

Lunchtime sports provide an opportunity for students to stay active during the lunch period,have many mental benefits, and uplift school spirit. 

According to a Teen Truth article, a website for empowering the student voice and enhancing school culture, “Unstructured time such as lunch can cause anxiety and stress for many students. During lunch, some students have trouble without the classroom environment guiding their interactions,” Teen Truth said.

A Miramonte student had similar things to say: “I believe the time we are given for lunch is a good amount to finish a meal and still socialize with friends after a rigorous class, but sometimes lunch feels too long and there is nothing to do. I am excited to hear about the new lunch time sports being offered and I think this brings a new fun perspective to “competitive” sports for students to participate in and will create a hands on activity to fill the gap of those long lunches,” Avery Freer, a Junior said.

The additional structured time brought by lunchtime sports helps students connect and cope with their stress by staying active. 

“Lunchtime sports help build a community and create camaraderie around the school,” Harris said. 

An article from University Communications at BYU stated, “The research indicates that students who enjoy lunchtime are more likely to feel that they belong at school; which is correlated with better academic outcomes and better mental health.”

First years who attended Orinda Intermediate School last year had frequent opportunities for lunchtime sports: “Lunchtime sports at OIS is what everyone did at every lunch and they made lunch very fun. A lot of people have nothing to do at lunch so I think adding activities like lunchtime sports to do at lunch would be fun for lots of people,” Luca Tarantino, a freshman, said.