Last season, 18 girls from the classes of 2015 and 2016 played for the girls varsity and junior varsity basketball teams; this season that number has dropped to just three.
Motives for leaving the team vary from player to player, and while some girls attributed the decision to academics and time constraints, others cite the demanding coaching staff as their motive for staying off the court.
“I felt like it was just timing and academics, and a little to do with people just falling out of love with basketball because of everything,” last year’s captain of the junior varsity team junior Caroline Mubiru said. “I don’t necessarily think it was all the coaches’ fault, but it was just an accumulation of the coaches being hard on us and everything else.”
Although some girls see head coach Chad Scott’s style as difficult, other girls have differing opinions.
“It’s not a very intense style of coaching and I’d say it’s fairly reasonable, but it gets to be a lot, playing six days a week,” varsity shooting guard and junior Jordan Rodgers said. “It doesn’t leave much time for homework or sleeping. It’s worth it, though.”
While demanding coaches and long practices may be seen as merely the reality of being on a high school sports team, the timing of the practices only works to further deteriorate the situation.
“We had to come back to school from 7-9 p.m., when I would usually be doing my homework, and you know sometimes we didn’t have a lot of enthusiasm, and that caused our practices to be sloppy,” Mubiru said.
Others, however, enjoy the practices times designated to the varsity team.
“I tend to like it as I get to go home, sleep, change, take a shower, eat and then come back; I feel more refreshed,” senior and varsity player Yasmin Molan said.
The remaining upperclassmen also acknowledged that the practices make it difficult to manage schoolwork, yet they have stayed on the team as a result of their dedication.
“I’ve been able to stick with the program mostly out of willingness to stay up half of the night doing homework if it means I can play basketball,” Rodgers said. “But it’s definitely hard.”
Scott accepted that as girls get older, dedicating themselves to basketball becomes increasingly difficult.
“The girls I spoke with were upfront and honest with me and told me that they were influenced to leave because of the demands of the IB course load and they needed to specialize in one sport going forward,” Scott said.
Although there has been a change in the depth of experience on the team, Scott does not believe that it has translated to a change in the level of play.
“As far as the level is concerned I don’t really think there’s been a difference in the level of play,” Scott said. “It’s just that we’re younger and we need more time to work out each other’s tendencies.”
Nonetheless, changes are being made to ensure that girls can successfully manage all of their work both on and off the court.
“This year we’re bringing in FCA, working with a character coach who deals with some off-the-court type issues and doing a lot of team bonding,” Scott said. “If they are struggling they can always be upfront and honest instead of waiting until the end of the season saying ‘Well, I was really stressed out this year.'”