It’s game day for the girls’ basketball team, and you imagine the crowd erupting with every point scored. But it’s all fake. In reality, the stands are quiet and empty. All you can hear are the squeaks from the players’ shoes on the court and shouting from the players and coaches.
Only a few hours later, the boys’ team shows up to play their game. You have to squeeze through a mass of people to fit into the stands. It’s so humid in the gym that you feel like you’re drowning. The student section erupts with chants and cheers as each point is scored.
I don’t understand why no one goes to girls’ sporting events. Our girls’ varsity basketball team won the Front-Range League last year. If that’s not deserving of a packed student section, I don’t know what is.
I can’t deny that our boys’ basketball team is good, but the girls are just as good—if not better. I don’t want to hear the excuse that girls are not as good at sports, because that is just not true. Might I bring up the league championship title again?
As someone who has played sports for as long as I can remember I didn’t learn about the WNBA until a few years ago. I grew up with two sports addicts, so it wasn’t like I didn’t know that the concept of professional womens’ sports existed. Our house was always filled with the sounds of announcers shouting or nonstop sports talk interrupting my sentences at dinner.
It was my brother who really introduced me to women’s sports. It was from him that I learned about Caitlin Clark and Sabrina Ionescu. It was he who gave me people to look up to, to idolize. Caitlin Clark, the point guard on the Iowa Hawkeyes, has blown up in the past couple of months, changing the history of CHSAA. She has broken both the college womens’ and mens’ total point records.
My dad and I have a daily conversation about the three-point contest during last month’s NBA All-Star Weekend between Stephen Curry and Sabrina Ionescu, the point guard from the New York Liberty. All-Star Weekend consists of a variety of different basketball events and games that feature the best players in the NBA. The illuminated court lit up their faces as we got to witness history. This was the first time a WNBA player has gotten to compete at All-Star Weekend. The anticipation I felt hoping she would win and prove all the critics wrong was incredible.
Many people talk about the quips over social media, about how it isn’t fair. How Sabrina shooting from the WNBA line gives her an advantage. How all the rules are unfair. But what is truly unfair is believing that she can’t keep up or win the contest. It’s unfair to all the girls learning about womens’ basketball from this contest that you can’t just support her and enjoy the WNBA getting publicity.
She still holds the record for the 3-point contest with 37 points. Curry narrowly defeated her at the All-Star contest by 3 points, with a final score of 26-29.
We all need to go to girls’ sports. We need the same level of enthusiasm as we have at boys’ events. We need to support the girls’ soccer and girls’ track and field stars as their seasons kick off. Go watch amazing female track stars like Maren Holecek ‘25 and Catherine Campbell ‘25. Watch them fly down the track as they win their races.
Go watch the amazing female soccer stars as well, such as Sophia Stalter ‘24 and Cami Ayandele ‘24. Watch them score, and cheer for them every step of the way.
I know you have the spirit. I’ve seen it at football and basketball games. The girls’ teams deserve support just as much as the boys do.
Let’s go crowd the stands with school spirit and cheer for our fellow coyotes.