DO GIRLS’ sports get less coverage than boys’ sports? Well, when I decided to try out for the Granger softball team, I heard that some students didn’t even know there was a softball team. And why is it that the only sports that we get to see advertised are football, basketball, and sometimes soccer? Why are those the only sports we hear a lot about?

What about volleyball, swimming, golf, track, wrestling, volleyball, cross country, baseball, or softball? If these were more recognized sports, more people would play them.

Why not try to popularize other sports instead of the same things that have remained popular sports? At least with Granger’s swim team, more of the athletes on the team are women. Also, with girls’ soccer and volleyball, it’s at the start of the year. That is a relatively bad time for sports because everyone is trying to settle into the new school year. Pretty much all that anyone sees is the super-popularized sports. 

Other sports are struggling to get players and must take in everyone who tries out just to have a team, which results in the team having to take extra time to teach the kids who don’t know how to play. Why, instead of focusing on the most popular sport, which is football, do you try to give every sport screen time so that people would be more interested in the sport, and be included in playing? 

Most girls who play sports tend to have to expect that they are never going to see their sport being enjoyed by others. By only pushing out football and basketball, you aren’t allowing people to find interest in other sports.

In the end, girls’ sports are heavily underrepresented due to a gender stereotype that women are bad at sports. Due to these stereotypes, it has been hard for girl’ sports to be recognized and popularized, especially in schools with their, most of the time, already low budget that is just never enough. 

We should try to get more girls interested in sports and to get out there and be active. When people say ‘Woman in man’s field,’ maybe that meme should be applied to sports as well, because a gender bias still stands.

There should be a push for all unpopularized sports so more people can find something they love doing — not just for the lack of girls’ sports being pushed aside, but for all sports that aren’t as popular as football and basketball. There should be more encouragement for women to join sports, and either way, getting involved in high school is part of the experience that makes high school tolerable. There is also a lack of recognition for dance and cheer — lots of people do not acknowledge that these are actually sports. They pretty much do not get recognition at all. They are some of the most demanding sports you could participate in, yet they get pretty much no attention. Get girls’ sports out there!