State Games Face Low Turnout

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Sullivan Lawrence

The girl’s basketball team celebrated their section win with the fans at the game.

Many of BSM’s sports teams made it to the state this year. Despite the many opportunities for students to attend these games, many have noticed the number of fans at the events has decreased.

Director of Parent & Alumni Relations, Rachel Olson, has noticed a decrease in students at state games, specifically, the girl’s state basketball game. Olson thinks early dismissal is affecting this problem. The current policy at BSM for state games is an early dismissal. With this system, students can either go home or go to the game. Olson came up with a new idea for BSM to get rid of the early dismal for state games to decrease the number of students not going to these events. “[In the future,] I think that students should be dismissed early only if they are attending the state tournament game to cheer on the Red Knights. If they are not attending the game, I think administration should require students to stay in school until the regular dismissal time. This would encourage more students to attend the game as the alternative would be to remain in school until the end of the day,” said Olson

As a freshman, Grace Bendickson is surprised to see the low number of student fans at state games and thinks the same as Olson about the early release. “I think [the low number of fans is] because the school lets us out and doesn’t give the option of you either have to stay at school or go to the game,” said Bendickson

As an alum and a parent of a student at BSM, Olsen expressed disappointment in BSM students not going to these games. She feels that there is less of a strong connection among the students. “I think that [BSM] is a small community, and I think that it’s really important for [students] to be invested in each other. In other years that I have been working here and as an alum, we’ve had huge student sections. I feel like there’s something missing right now, and I really think that we need to figure out a way as a community to come together and to really have some leaders on the student side that can pull people [in] and excite people and unite people to rally behind all of our success,” said Olson.

Many students involved in extracurricular activities do not have the time to go to these games as they may bleed into their time after school. Students who weren’t able to attend these days and wanted to talk to a teacher expressed frustration that a lot of the teachers weren’t there to help because they went to the game. “I had to go to volunteering after school, so sadly, I can’t make it to [the girls’ state basketball] games. I think that if the school didn’t have an early release, it’d be really helpful, because [that way], some kids like me who can’t attend the games, can still get the benefit of getting help,” said junior Siena Carver.