How often do we go out to support our school football teams? Easy answer — once a week on Friday nights in the fall we have a band, the cheer team, and the majority of the student body dressed at the football stadium to support our football team.

The harder question is this: how often do we support other sports such as soccer, swimming, softball, or lacrosse? Sadly, the answer to that is close to never. Not even when these sports make it to the playoffs do they get the support they need from the student body.  

We don’t ever hear students in the halls talking about the next big cross country meet that they just can’t wait to go to, or how they plan to go all out for the upcoming softball match. You only seem to hear excitement for football. It is time that this changes. 

“I personally think that we should put in more effort to celebrate the other sports we have,” freshman color guard member Michelle Phan said. “We have so many competitive sports but the only one that seems to get recognized is football, and I think we should incorporate more support from the student body to the other competitions.”

If you look at the sports tab on our own school newspaper’s website, what are the most popular stories? Football. Whether it’s about a game we just played or predictions for the season, despite the fact that we cover all sports, football stories always seem to be the fan-favorite.

Other sports train hard throughout their seasons just as much as football does — sometimes even harder. Other sports such as softball have one team that plays three games a week and practices every other day. These sports deserve the same recognition and praise that football gets. 

“I agree [that students tend to glorify football over other sports]. I think the reason for this is because the generations before setting such baselines had made it such a major icon for today’s society, and it’s almost at the point where every child has a dream to play under the lights on Friday nights,” football coach Chase Penland said. “I do think that we should give attention to other sports and that [it is possible]. It is just not the norm.”

Maybe if we had a band and cheerleaders for other sports, and made them more of a big deal, they would get the same amount of recognition as football. We need to show the same amount of respect to other sports as we show to football. 

When you think about it, does it really make sense having the band at every football game but at no other field sports such as soccer? Everyone always says it is because of the space issue, but so many of the other sports play on the same field football does. 

I say that instead of having the band play at every football away game, they should stay and play for other sports that have home games. 

Starr’s Mill has a number of amazing athletes from all different sports, and it is time they get the recognition they deserve. 

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