While you are sitting in 3rd period math class, 12 and 13-year-old boys were playing baseball for the coveted title of Little League World Champions. Teams from all over the world competed in Williamsport, Pennsylvania and battled it out for the championship trophy.

One concern the young athletes had was missing school. The Little League World Series started on July 29 and ended on August 27. This means most teams missed about a month of class due to the length of the tournament. The amount of school missed for most foreign teams was about 35 days. This included travel time, tournament time and flight dates. To prevent students from getting too far behind in school, these ball players did up to two hours of homework each day in their hotel rooms. This ensures that when they got back from Williamsport, they didn’t have a mountain of assignments waiting for them.

“We’ve already started school,” said West Region player Antonio Andre. “We can’t miss any of our assignments. We can’t fail school so we just continue working.”

The excitement, competitiveness and friendliness that surrounded Williamsport made memories that will last forever. Perhaps that justifies showing up a month late for 3rd period math class?