Kristen Griffith | Adriane Fraser/The Whetstone
By Kristen Griffith, The Whetstone
Student athletes often compare their team’s recognition to others. More commonly, many student athletes recognize that their sport is not as popular as football.
Football is a nationally popular sport, so it does not surprise me when the bleachers are filled almost every other Saturday afternoon and nearly empty Saturday evening during the women’s soccer game.
However, just because football outshines many other sports in this country, doesn’t mean Wesley’s Division III football team deserves more recognition than the other 16 NCAA sports at Wesley.
The Wesley athletics’ Twitter page floods my timeline during football games. They update almost every play, which player made what play. Some tweets are even humorous comments about the game.
I wish I saw the same effort put in for other fall sport games.
There were more than 20 consecutive tweets during the Salisbury football game, the same with Montclair State and Rowan.
The other sport games managed to get around two or three tweets each, which were simple score updates.
Throughout my four years here, my parents were charged less than 10 times to watch my games. The athletic department charged $2 a person if they had enough work-study students.
Brett Ford, sports information director, said the ticket booth is the first to go, nonchalantly throwing away money, when they are understaffed. Yet the school hires security for football games to make sure everything, including the ticket booth, runs smoothly.
Before football’s first game of the season, the day before a women’s soccer game, security said they were told to kick us off Drass field so the Delaware Valley University football team could “warm up.â€
After a team talk on the baseball field, we walked back to the locker room, noticing the few Delaware Valley players walking around the field, listening to music and socializing.
Ironically, almost every time our practice is scheduled after football’s, we wait an extra five to 10 minutes for them to leave the field. Even on game days.
Delaware Valley beat Wesley that night.
Situations like this reassured me there are biases toward the football team. This inspired my senior project, which include seven articles that take a deeper look into Wesley athletics.
During a friendly classroom debate about sport recognition, a football player said football’s privileges, like consistent recognition, buffets and nice hotels, come from its success on the field.
Football consistently holds winning records, but players aren’t part of the only successful team on campus.
My interview with the trackless Track Coach Stephen Kimes enlightened me on track’s success and their lack of recognition.
According to my classmate’s logic, the track team should qualify for the same privileges the football team has.
Instead, the 2014 budget showed that the 80-athlete track team only received $12,100, the same year they broke records, produced All-Americans and placed in the conference championship.
The football team received $192,300 that year.
The equality of recognition and support for sport teams needs to improve with help from students and administration.
Students should support as many sports as possible; while the athletic administration take the time to make sure no sport is prioritized over the other.
