I Wanna Be The Very Best: Pokémon GO helping athletes stay motivated during the summer
Summer practice was sometimes hard, not because it was hot or the training was tough, but because it was early in the morning! Not many teenagers like the idea of waking up at 6 in the morning to go run but as motivation, catching Pokémon was the way to GO (pun intended).
The coaches tried motivating the student athletes in different ways to get them to come to morning practice but nothing really hit like Pokémon GO. So the coaches tried to download it themselves.
“It was something different. There was so much buzz going around school about this game,” says Forrest Farokhi, cross country coach. “The way the game works, you go around town and you basically discover new Pokemon so I basically turned it into a challenge to see who can come up with the best or the Pokemon with the most points.”
The students were more than grateful for the change of pace. Since Pokémon spawn there often the Pokémon Run took place on campus of the University of Illinois. Meeting at the Armory, the athletes warmed up and then the rules of the game were introduced. Rules were basic and simple, whoever catches the most Pokémon or more rare types of Pokémon; anything other than the typical Rattata or Pidgey would win. Students were basically sprinting from The Quad to Green Street trying to find as many Pokemon as possible.
Faroki continued with, “I split everyone up into groups, sorta based on ability, and they were gone for the whole hour and came back ranting and raging about how much fun they had. It seemed to work for an easy day of training.”
Olivia Rosenstein, a freshman student athletes, agrees that Pokémon was popular during the summer. She was one of the athletes in the team that played the game often on her own time. So other than her love for the sport, the Pokémon Run was just another motivator to get out and run.
“I did appreciate the change in practice, our workouts follow the same general pattern every week, so it was nice to do something different,” Rosenstein said. “The Pokémon Run helped me have a lot of fun and was really refreshing.”
However, Pokémon GO seems to have had its glory days gone.
“I would do it again,” Faroki starts. “However, the game has lost a little of its luster with the kids. It’s interesting how games come and go. Like Pokémon was cool for about two months and now everyone’s playing this eight-ball pool game and I guarantee you in another month there will be a game that will replace that as the ‘cool thing’ at that moment.”
In truth, Pokémon GO had its highlights but after its many flaws- like crashes, the same Pokémon spawning over and over again, and lagging, the game started to die down.
Pokémon GO has had a few updates since then, fixing these bugs many players complained about. New Pokemon characters were added, new location features were added and now players can even expect holiday specials every season.
Still, the game just isn’t as popular as it was since the summer. At least the students could say it was fun while it lasted.
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