Fight for the Lights
You have waited all week for a chance to play in the most energizing atmosphere possible. Loud cheering and excitement fill the air around you as you pace up and down the sideline. There is an exhilarating adrenaline coursing through your blood. The bright lights are beating down on you, creating an unfamiliar spotlight. Your friends, family, and classmates are screaming your name and bursting with anticipation. As the final minutes before game time slowly pass by, you gather around your team and prepare yourself. You step onto the field and the game begins. Nothing in the world can stop you now.
Despite having limited time under the lights, boys soccer captain Amar Vyas describes this sensation as “the best feeling in the world”. Every athlete deserves the chance to experience this indescribable motivator that fills you with enthusiasm. However, it seems as though one sport has the entire spotlight. The sacred tradition of high school football teams playing on Friday nights has been around for ages. The National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) is actively trying to protect that tradition. They constructed a resolution that urges schools and teams at the college and professional levels to honor that tradition by scheduling games on other days. It’s not fair for other sports teams to spoil that tradition for the football team and as girls soccer coach Heidi Wilbrandt said in her interview, other sports teams simply “can’t compete with football”. In an interview with the USA Football organization, James Franklin, head coach of the Penn State football team, spoke on how “high school football has the ability to bring schools and communities and towns together like nothing else can” (USA Football). Although other sports teams deserve the opportunity to play under the lights, jeopardizing this cherished tradition would seem unjust. So how can Hawken allow other sports teams to play in primetime games without breaking an American tradition? Before we tackle this question, we have to understand why playing and attending games is so important.
Students who join a high school sports team enjoy several advantages that can help them throughout their lives. A survey commissioned by the Alberta Schools’ Athletic Association revealed that 78.3 percent of Alberta’s top corporate CEOs and members of the Legislative Assembly had participated in inter school sports. Nearly 80 percent indicated that being involved in school sports significantly, extensively or moderately complemented their career development and/or academic pursuits (NFHS). In addition to this, it helps keep students physically and mentally fit. Involvement in sports also helps develop young athletes into functional and active members of society. The National Survey of Civic Engagement found that 18 to 25-year-olds who participate in sports activities while in high school are more likely than nonparticipants to be engaged in volunteering, voting, feeling comfortable speaking in public settings, and watching the news (NFHS). Sports writer Darren Cooper explains the problem regarding sports games, “High school athletics remain one of the pillars of American society. It’s where lessons are learned and friendships are made for a lifetime. But if there’s no one interested in seeing the result, how much of a future do these events have?” 80 years ago in the 1939 High School national football game, there was an intense crowd of 19,000 fans. Nowadays, that number has dropped to roughly 1,000 fans. The attendance of games is in a steady decline and that’s mainly due to a change in school culture. Students feel pressured into enrolling into as many extracurricular activities as possible and find themselves with less time to spend attending sports games. High school sports detached from collegiate and professional level competition because they sustain lifelong fans anymore. When you cheer for a college or professional team, it is usually for life. But how often do you find people returning to watch their high school team compete? The gigantic sports industry is a complex puzzle with pieces all over the place. There are however, some short-term solutions that can help put some of those pieces together and create the amazing environment that every high school athlete deserves.
One solution to this this issue, is to utilize Saturdays by scheduling more games for the non-football teams. All of the athletes we interviewed agreed that scheduling more games on Saturdays would be extremely beneficial to the school, the players, and especially the fans. One of the main reasons it’s so difficult for students to come to weekday games is because they have next-day commitments that restrict them from going out. Scheduling more games on Saturdays could help resolve this issue for students as they’d be much more flexible with their schedules. In addition to Saturday games helping the fans, it would also provide a favorable advantage to the players. As football player, Cooper Jared explains in his interview, “The student section takes pressure off the sideline to be hype for their team and damages the away team’s focus.” Having an invigorating crowd of your friends pump you up before a big Saturday game is an enormous motivator. Furthermore, anything to distract the away team form their main objective is exceedingly helpful for the home team. There are many factors that go into the scheduling process for high school athletics, but if other schools in the CVC were open to increasing Saturday matches, it could really boost attendance. There is another emerging issue bothering soccer players that could be solved by scheduling Saturday games. Danny Ecker, boys varsity soccer captain, explained how the “soccer field has seating limitations and even the design of the soccer field, limits the fans from experiencing the game”. The other sports teams rarely get the chance to play in Walton stadium, but believe that it provides a better atmosphere for their team. If more Saturday games were scheduled then more teams would get the opportunity to play in the thrilling stadium and it would allow for a more exciting school culture around sports.