San Luis Obispo High School’s Lifetime Sports class battles in a badminton championship game during class. Photo courtesy of Physical Education teacher Kennedy Meaney.
San Luis Obispo High School offers many electives, but none of them are as valuable as Lifetime Sports. This class focuses on building skills in activities students can enjoy for life, including badminton, spike ball, bowling and pickleball. Lifetime Sports is known as a low-stress elective with good energy.
“It’s all seniors, and it has great vibes, you’re not worrying about schoolwork or homework, and you just get to have a great time and be competitive,” said senior Jacob Gill.
The vibes that are created aren’t accidental, because Lifetime Sports is not a required class like P.E., students choose to take this class, making the environment enjoyable and positive. This elective course is better than P.E. because, rather than having weight room and fitness days, Lifetime Sports plays a variety of fun sports 5 days a week, allowing students to improve their athletic skills that they can carry with them through the duration of their lives.
Not only is Lifetime Sports stress-free, but students get hands-on experience with the opportunity to go on two field trips. Students can vote on where they want to go, with options like Mustang Lanes for bowling or the beach to play volleyball.
“In lifetime sports, you learn a bunch of new sports that I’ve honestly never heard of, so it’s really nice to just branch out to new things,” said senior Kendall Thompson.
This class builds confidence by practicing daily, students improve without even realizing it. Many SLOHS students don’t know what this class is, so many are missing out on the fun this class has to offer.
“We try to keep the class really fun, positive energy with all of our students, focusing on good sportsmanship. I think confidence is built through a lot of repetition of all the skills, playing every day, for the whole class period, and going over different strategies, which hopefully builds confidence and skills. And the goal is to help students be confident to go play these sports outside of school for the rest of their lives,” said Lifetime Sports teacher Coach Meaney.
Through countless hours of repetition in different sports, students are able to gain skills that will be easy to remember even as they age. Because of the variety in the lifetime sports taught at SLOHS, no matter the student’s athletic skills, everyone is able to develop an interest in being active, making Lifetime Sports a fun elective at SLOHS. Lifetime Sports equips students with the athletic abilities and healthy habits that will stick with them long after graduation. SLOHS needs to continue to value, support, and recognize Lifetime Sports as an extremely important elective. So, if you have space in your schedule for the 2026-2027 school year, pick Lifetime sports.
