Girls’ sports deserve more attention here at WHS as they are greatly underrepresented throughout the school. Football and boys basketball are arguably the most popular sports at WHS and it shows by the amount of support they get from students and staff.
The boys’ and girls’ basketball teams had their home opening game less than a week apart from each other, but the boys’ team got to play on Friday night with the WHS band and a student section full of kids supporting their peers. The WHS band did not show up to the girls’ game and there was little to no student support.
Sydney King, a senior lacrosse player, believes that basketball is not the only sport that doesn’t get as much attention as the boys.
“We are lucky to have five students attend our games,” King said. “We try our best to promote our games on social media but there is only so much we can do since not that many students follow us.”
Several sports, including girl’s soccer, basketball, and lacrosse, have Instagram accounts that post when their games are and urge the students to come support, but due to those accounts not having many followers, nothing has changed. Several Instagram accounts supposedly promote all Wadsworth sports, but have only posted for football games and boys’ basketball games this year.
The girls’ basketball team started the year off 6-0, with several close and exciting wins. King explained that a team starting off the season with a 6-0 record is a big deal, and she didn’t even know until she saw it on X. Any team, whether it is a boys team or a girls’ team, should have its accomplishments on display whether it is on the announcements or even just a blurb in the weekly email.
Girls participating in sports have been rapidly declining at WHS. Last year, the lacrosse and softball teams didn’t know if they would have enough players for a JV [junior varsity] team, and this year the girls’ basketball team only has 6 JV players. There are many different reasons for this ongoing issue, but the minimal support of girl’s sports throughout the school is definitely one of them.“I feel like girls are losing their pride in playing sports because we are constantly being made to feel like our sports aren’t as important or fun to watch,” King said.
Schools themselves cannot fix the lack of student support at girls’ sports games, but they could certainly make a better effort to promote all sports equally. Lotus Lemp, senior soccer captain and member of the Student Council, agrees that more could be done on social media to support all sports.
“I do think that we [WHS] should try as best as we can to promote all the sports as equally as possible on social media,” Lemp said. “Every sport deserves recognition.”
Girls sports deserve more recognition worldwide and it starts with bringing attention to them in high school.
