Chapter 4 - School Start 4
When the pandemic struck the world in the past, one of the things that could help prevent someone from getting it was living a healthy life. Exercise became super popular at the time because everyone was scared of the disease.
As it developed further, some people started getting into sports and fell in love with it. Then, sports became popular on an unprecedented scale.
The more popular sports like Football, Rugby, Basketball, Badminton, Tennis, and Baseball became super popular. More and more talented athletes appeared in these sports where it was also dubbed the golden age of those sports.
The less popular sports like Volleyball, Golf, and many others reached the same popularity as Football in the past.
The one which was only played in school such as Dodgeball became a real popular sport with the same popularity as Football in the past.
More than that, many new sports that were played during childhood became real sports too and it also was as popular as the past Football.
Going further than that, many new sports that people created for fun emerged and like all the other sports, gained popularity and became as big as the past Football too.
Sports are now an important part of life for everyone. The government knew of the importance of it and thus, took it seriously at the school level where many talented athletes could be found.
Haikal and Badrul looked at the list of the leftover sports. Although they were 'leftover' they were all popular. The students preferred sports like Football and Badminton more because it was always popular since a long time ago.
"Hmm…" the duo contemplated which sports to choose. None of them appeal to them.
"Should we just randomly choose one? All of them are better than extreme sports," Badrul suggested.
"I think I am going for the Shooter Ball," Haikal said decisively.
"Shooter Ball?" Badrul raised an eyebrow.
"Look," Haikal pointed at the number of students registered in it.
"They are the leftover sports with the most students. Do you know what this means for us?" Haikal asked. Badrul shook his head. He had no idea.
"If we join this club, the chance of us being chosen in the competition team is lower. If we are chosen to join the competition team, we will get less time to study. With this many students, if we show subpar results in training, there is no way we will join the team," Haikal gave his deduction.
"Oh~ You are right!" Badrul could see it now.
"But…" Badrul hesitated, "We still need to participate in a competition or two or our record will not look good. Our chance to get into a course in University will be lowered without participating in any competition."
"We might not be able to enter the state competition or the national competition but we still have the school competition. It will be fine," Haikal replied as he quickly clicked on 'register' for the Shooter Ball club.
"Hmm… make sense," Badrul did the same too.
This time, there was no notification saying they failed to register. Both of them heaved a sigh of relief. They were afraid that this registration would fail too.
Now that all of that was done, they logged out of the site and started playing games on their phones. They could not do that later but this was the first day, thus, the school was lenient about this matter.
If they played with their phones during class on normal days, the punishment would not be pleasant. Playing during recess time and in-between class exchange was fine.
In the past, students were not allowed to even bring their phones to school. If they were caught bringing it, it would get confiscated.
However, as time passed, the handphone became part of everyone's life and thus, it was allowed in school. Still, regulation needed to be applied as it was well known how addicting the small gadget could become.
Time passes and after the afternoon recess time, Haikal and Badrul get an email regarding their registration for the elective classes and Shooting Ball club.
Nothing to be said about the elective class but the club was a bit different than in the past. Sports clubs in the past were under the school but in 2030, with sports becoming super popular it had changed.
Now, the sports club in school was affiliated with the Professional Sports Club. Similar to the popular football club in the past which still existed and became massively popular.
The Professional Sports Club did this to find talents to join their club when the students graduated.
This was good for the school as they could lessen the cost of operating the sports club as all the expenses were the pro club's responsibility. The budget they had for a sports club in the past could be used in many other things to make the school better.
Thanks to this, the school managed to improve its infrastructure making the school comfortable for the students to study.
Now that the Professional Sports Club was fully responsible for the school's sports club, the time to do club activities had changed.
In the past, the co-curriculum activity was done on Wednesday evening. Since the Professional Sports Club took over, the weekday was fully booked for academic activity.
The academic activity included extra classes, tuition, research experiment, and non-sports club activities.
The sports activity would be done on Saturday. If the students wanted to spend more on sports activity, no one would stop them but the Professional Sports Clubs were allowed to do the activity on Saturday only.
This rule was not made by the school but by the Education Ministry. This was to make sure that the sports activity would not interfere with the students' studies unless it was a competition.
Not all students would become professional athletes after graduation. Moreover, if the athlete failed to get far in the professional scene, their academic qualification would determine their job after that. Thus, the academic part was still the most important and should not be disturbed.
Haikal and Badrul got an email for the Shooter Ball Club but it was not from the school but the professional sports club affiliated with the school.
"Cili Padi Club? They have a Shooter Ball Club too?" Badrul questioned.
"I guess so," Haikal nodded.