Inequality in support for UHS basketball teams

The Urbana High School girls basketball team is a very successful unit, yet they seem to be missing one thing: recognition from both the school and the student body.

Chian Scott, one of the captains of the team, explains that despite loving the sport, “we get angry sometimes because [the boy’s team] has so much, but we’ve learned to adapt.”

It’s not the boys team’s fault or even the school’s, but rather our culture’s. Boys basketball is simply treated as superior to girls basketball.

Because the boys games draw a bigger crowd, they receive much more support and recognition from the school than girls do.

According to Scott, “they get both sides of the bleachers for people to sit and watch, the boys charge admission, and have the pep band play for them.”

Part of what makes boys basketball games so much fun is the energy there is, and a lot of that energy is due to the pep band.

“Fewer students attend the girls games and I think having a band there would make it more unified,” explained senior Miranda Kowalski, pep band member.

Sophomore Willem Alleyne believes that “the pep banders would be open to playing in girls basketball games since it means more playing. The only thing that would be a problem is the scheduling. It’s hard to have two or more games a week and I think the boys games would be taking precedent.”

The girls and the boys also share a “black table that controls the scoreboard, and it belongs to the girls and the boys but [the girls] don’t get to use it,” says Scott.

Stephen Waller, athletic director, explains that “we don’t use the black table for the girl’s games because of the setup. We would need to pull out the bleachers on the other side to set it up.”

Despite the number of people that show up to the games, the girls deserves both more material support and recognition. Making small changes to encourage more people to show up would be a step in the right direction to increase the culture around girls basketball.

“If we had more, I feel like we would play more confidently because when we play, we feed off the energy in a crowd,” Scott explains.

The school and the student body must begin to support the girls team more, to change our culture into one that helps them to become an even better team.