As a 3rd year Girls Varsity Soccer player, the importance of home games has begun to sink in. Every year it becomes more meaningful to step on Brooks Field and play for the community. Hearing the custom made playlist blaring from the speakers, as we warm up, Coach Borde’s commonly used phrase rings in the back of my years, “This is our house.” Home games serve as an opportunity for members of the community to conveniently attend and support their town and for players to display their talents and hard work. Each game taking place on Brooks Field, whether it is under the lights or sun, contains a completely different meaning than long bus rides to far away towns. Each home game win means even more and each home game loss cuts even deeper.
For the past 2 years the speakers on Brooks Field have been unreliable and in blatant need of repair, buzzing and beeping with ever hint of a bass and even ringing during high pitched notes. At the start of the 2014-2015 school year, the athletic director announced that new speakers would be used for the beloved home games taking place on Brooks field during this school year. The announcement provoked instant excitement, primarily in the seniors who had been dealing with the sub par music system for three years. One senior volunteered to make the warm up CD which would be played at the start of every home game. After countless hours of editing songs in an effort to eliminate all curses, the CD was ready for it’s debut. On a Tuesday night at 7pm the team approached the field, and one captain become aware that there were no speakers present. After a long argument it was explained that the new speaker system was to be rented out for Milton High School Football games only. The news hit the entire team hard. Why had hours been put into perfecting a CD when our own athletic director doesn’t see it fit to rent girls’ teams a sound system? The current controversy over equality in girls and boys high school sports had never been so obvious to me. Both programs spent equal time training for each home game, both programs contained equal excitement for their home opener, why wouldn’t both programs be treated equally?
In my life time I have experienced unequal treatment in regards to sports multiple times. However, never had I seen the decision of an Athletic Director to spend far more money and efforts on boys’ teams than girls’ teams result in the broken heartedness of so many of my teammates.
Oh Anna, I don't even want to put my thoughts in writing for fear of some retribution. I will simply say that I feel your frustration. I heard you guys had a great playoff game earlier this week. The girls' volleyball team also had a big playoff game this week. I look forward to celebrating your teams' successes at the pep rally this year. But, oh wait, that probably won't happen, because we will be too busy spending time celebrating...
ReplyDeleteI should stop there before I say something that gets me in trouble.
Anyway, I must say that you are a very strong writer. You write just as clearly as any student I have worked with. In addition, your style has a little edge and depth that makes it fun to read. As far as this specific post goes, I would say that it was good. I wish you spent more time developing your actual conclusion. Because you only have 400 words, it might not be too wise to spend so much time introducing your argument. I think you would have written a more convincing post if you spent less time developing the benefits of home field advantage and more time talking about inequalities in sports. As your post exists right now, there is a little disconnect between the intro and the conclusion. You don't really relate home field advantage to the actual speakers. Therefore, the issue with the speakers comes across as a bit random.