As a cheerleader in my freshman year, I’ve only cheered for boys’ sports: JV football in the fall and boys’ varsity hockey and basketball in the winter. The way I see it, many people, including myself, prefer male-dominant sports. However, female sports should get more recognition for all of their hard work. 

“My freshman year I would cheer for girl’s hockey and basketball. Almost nobody would be there,” varsity cheerleader junior Abby Bourque said.

A survey was given asking upperclassmen about which sports they favor among fall, winter, and spring seasons. The answers came back with football at 58%, boys hockey at 33% and baseball at 31%. 

SHS students’ most favored girls’ sport during the fall is a tie between volleyball and cheer with 7%. The most preferred female sport during the winter is the dance team with 8%. Lastly, for spring, the favored female sport had been girl’s soccer with 12%.

“When I started cheering for boys sports I noticed a lot more attendance at the games. Football is my favorite sport because you can feel the crowd’s energy change as the game goes on,” Bourque stated.

Many people feel the same way as she does when the team delivers a good play or when we score a touchdown. The attendance at games could be caused by multiple things but I’ve heard some say it’s because people don’t care about the female athletes.

“I feel like people care, but it could just be because of the setting: where they are playing and possibly their performance,” Bourque said.

I agree with Bourque. I feel like if girls’ hockey were to play at Wessman Arena rather than SAHA, there would be more attendance because it’s closer, but that can’t be the case with girls’ basketball since all teams play at SHS. 

The lack of attendance to girls’ sports because they have “more intense” games. From my experience as a cheerleader, boys do play more intensely than the girls. In other words, the boys either appear faster or seem to be “more aggressive” than the females.

An article done by The Atlantic said that a girl’s college basketball team decided to do a kale theme, hosting related games such as a kale-eating contest. A contestant of the kale-eating contest, who wasn’t a fan of women’s basketball, went to the game strictly for the kale. 

Our girls’ teams could do fun themes. A kale theme might seem a little boring but having different themes that are in common liking could attract more people.

Considering the blacklight volleyball tournament we had earlier this year, it didn’t matter whether you were male or female, you could go. A lot of people expressed that it was fun and they had a good time. Having themes like this for more sports other than volleyball would be an interesting addition to our school events.

“Teams such as [cheer, dance, twirl and gymnastics] could gain more recognition by having a type of open gym where anyone can just come to try it even if it’s for a day,” Borque said. 

With this in mind, not many people are aware of open gyms. Or, they might not be aware that anyone can go even if they don’t end up trying out for that team in the following weeks.

 If open gyms were advertised more throughout the school and not just around the gyms or locker room, I feel like more people would attend. I hear many students speaking about how they want to try playing a new sport but they either don’t have any experience or they are fearful of trying out because there is a chance they won’t make the team. 

Advertising the open gyms throughout the whole school, in my opinion, would bring more people to give that sport a shot and they might actually like it or gain more respect for it. 

It should be recognized that girls work just as hard as the boys and deserve spectators at their games just as much as the guys do.