Sam Dean | The Roanoke Times

Patrick Henry High School's volleyball team returns late from a midweek trip to Halifax County. Many students still had homework to do.

Laura Jesse tries to squeeze in some homework before Patrick Henry's game against Halifax County. After traveling to South Boston, the team returned at 11 p.m.

Mimi Pham listens to her iPod while on a midweek road trip with Patrick Henry's volleyball team to Halifax County earlier this month.

Jenny Young and her teammates rest while waiting for the bus that will take Patrick Henry's volleyball team to Halifax County.

It was 2 p.m. on a Thursday, and Victoria Ledford, Katie Pillis and the 23 players in Patrick Henry High School's volleyball team had gotten out of school an hour and a half early. Ledford was missing calculus; Pillis was missing classes at CITY School, an advanced program in English and government.

They lounged on the ground, wearing matching warmup suits and gossiping, as they waited for a chartered bus that would end up being an hour late.

"Are you guys in geometry or Algebra II?"

"The Wal-Mart near the mall? I was there."

"It's a black strapless dress with a bow right here." Homecoming was four days away.

The bus finally arrived and the coach hustled them in. They were bound for South Boston, a two-and-a-half hour drive, for a regular season game against Halifax County High School. They wouldn't be back until almost 11 p.m. An early night, according to coach Patti Sheedy.

For years, student athletes in Roanoke have spent long hours rumbling across Southwest Virginia for regular season games. Come playoff time, the travel gets even longer. Students miss classes, struggle to get homework done and often don't get to bed until early the next morning. The trips also cost the Roanoke school district an estimated $80,000 a year.

The Virginia High School League, which governs school sports, requires that schools play similarly sized competitors. That means that Patrick Henry, with about 2,000 students, can't compete in league play against neighboring high schools such as Cave Spring, Hidden Valley or Salem, because none of those tops 1,300 students.

But parents and school officials are increasingly questioning the VHSL's requirements, saying that travel hurts academics and volatile gas prices hurt school finances. In response, the league on Tuesday will release a proposal for a new system that could mean less travel during the regular season.

Going to far-off games can be "nightmarish" for parents and students, said Randy Norbo, who has put two sports-playing daughters through Patrick Henry and whose third daughter is a senior there who plays at least one sport each season.

"I remember going down there [to Patrick Henry] many a night at midnight or 11:30 to pick her up when the bus rolls in," he said, referring to his oldest daughter. "She's tired, she still has to take a shower and she has to go to bed and she still has to do papers."

Patrick Henry is in the VHSL's AAA division, reserved for the state's largest schools. It competes in a division that includes such distant opponents as Halifax County High School, E C Glass High School in Lynchburg and George Washington High School in Danville. Roanoke's William Fleming High School, which has grown in recent years, now plays in the AAA division as well.

Everyone agrees that sports are an integral part of the American high school experience. But "at what point do we recognize that athletics is secondary to education?" asks school board Chairman David Carson.

Last year, the William Fleming boys basketball team drove to Northern Virginia and back three times in seven days for playoff games. The bus left about noon and came back after midnight.

"And we expect to have to do that again this year," William Fleming Athletic Director John Elliott said.

A month ago, the school's junior varsity football team traveled with a city middle school team to Franklin County High School in Rocky Mount for a doubleheader. The middle school game did not end until almost 10 p.m., pushing back the start of the junior varsity game, Elliott said. JV players didn't get off the field until almost midnight, at which point they still had a long bus ride home.

"I did receive a few phone calls [from parents] the next morning," Elliott said.

To Elliott and other athletic directors, playing closer to home would be a "perfect situation."

"Go across town, play the game, send everybody home. Everybody has a good time," Elliott said.

Some Roanoke parents also say the long drives may turn some students off from sports. Fewer than a quarter of the city's high school students play organized sports. The national rate is almost 60 percent.

In September, a group of school officials met with VHSL officials and asked for a way to cut down on long, expensive bus rides.

"I did not sense any sympathy for the situation, but they politely listened to my concerns," Carson said.

Mike McCall, a spokesman for the VHSL, said the league's new proposal would allow schools to set their own schedule during the regular season, which would let Roanoke schools play nearby schools in Roanoke County or Salem.

For the playoffs, the state would be divided into five size categories, rather than three categories today. Larger schools, such as Patrick Henry and William Fleming, would likely still travel long distances for playoff games.

Student athletes say they've gotten used to doing homework on the bus or late at night. They say they make sure to keep their grades up and show up on time the morning after games. Starting this year, school officials expect student athletes to hold a 2.0 grade-point average to play competitively.

Senior Katie Pillis, the Patrick Henry volleyball player, still had two hours of English homework to do after the game. So at what time did she think she'd get to bed?

She shrugged: "I don't know."

Once on the bus, a few players pulled textbooks out of their bags. Others chatted, braided one another's hair or listened to iPods. Soon, as the bus rolled through Pittsylvania County farmland, almost every player had fallen asleep.

Only about two dozen people were in the stands at Halifax High School, and the cavernous gym echoed with the squeak of sneakers and players' shouts. The junior varsity squad took the court first. The varsity players, their kneepads around their ankles, settled into an empty corner of the bleachers, under a wall of baby-blue championship banners dating back almost 50 years. With calculators and textbooks balanced on their knees they got to work.

"It makes it harder, but I guess you just have to have good time management," said Victoria Ledford, a junior on the volleyball team who had struggled to read "The Scarlet Letter" on the bus.

The JV game was over quickly. Patrick Henry lost. The varsity team took the court and quickly dispatched Halifax in less than an hour.

Halifax has rarely offered much varsity competition for Patrick Henry. But when the Patriots play Salem or Cave Spring, the games are much more competitive, even though those are smaller schools.

After a pit stop at Wendy's, it was time to hit the road again at 8:28 p.m. Total time in the gym: an hour and a half. Total time on the road: five hours, not counting the half-hour at Wendy's.

"I think it's really hard on the kids. You get off the bus after two hours, it's a late night getting back, especially when there are so many teams right in the valley that are competitive that we could be playing," said Sheedy, the volleyball coach and Patrick Henry's athletic director.

Mark Lucas, the father of Clayborne Lucas, a ninth-grade student on the team, said he has thought about sending his daughter to another school, even though she gets good grades.

"She really likes PH," he said. "But if you continue to have to get to bed at 1 o'clock after a game, you have to start to weigh that."

"I've seen Cara go to school with bloodshot eyes," said Tammy Small, whose daughter Cara Thomas is an 11th-grade volleyball player at William Fleming. "It's just too far to travel and it's dangerous. On rainy nights I'm just praying they get home safely."

Other parents, however, have adopted a more sanguine attitude.

"They've got to learn how to travel," said Nancy Bannister, the mother of a 10th-grade student at William Fleming.

It was almost 10 p.m. and the Patrick Henry bus was still more than an hour away from Roanoke.

The coaches were fast asleep, but the players, energized by their game and their dinner, chattered away because it was too dark to study. A couple of students sent a remote-controlled car zipping up and down the aisle as the bus sliced deeper and deeper into the night.