Football, volleyball, soccer and field hockey. Those are just four of ten fall sports that practiced through all of August. At the same time, most float parties were being held. For student-athletes, is it nearly impossible to contribute at these Homecoming events when you have to prioritize your team and practice. Float parties not being allowed during the first few weeks of school or summer weekends make it infeasible for a vast group of students to participate.
With fall sports having such extreme practice schedules, it is frustrating when these parties have only been held during weekdays. For many teams, they practiced for hours every day at the end of summer. It is disappointing coming home from a grueling workout to see the event has already wrapped up. It would have been appreciated if the sports calendar would have been more considerate of other school events like float parties.
Another component of the issue is the scheduling of Homecoming itself. Last year, the dance was held on Oct. 8 while this year’s is on Sept. 30. That week difference between the two dates is troubling to the student-athletes who want to be a part of all the festivities. With everything being pushed up a week, there are less opportunities for many to contribute.
There are solutions to these problems such as: allowing float parties during the school week/ends and pushing Homecoming back a week in the future. Once school comes around, students’ weekends free up and more will likely be available to come to the events. Scheduling should take advantage of this transition period as it serves as a perfect time to work with students before their lives are busy again. Putting Homecoming at a later date, similar to last year, would also be beneficial. This would push the parties back at least a week, meaning more would be after the start of school. Also, a later date gives the class more time to complete the float, creating more parties and extra opportunities for busy people to go.
At the end of the day, athletes just want to be included. Students want to have the chance to go but the current schedule sometimes takes away that option. Being more flexible towards sports schedules would open up a whole new group of people to help out, and with more people participating, all classes will be more successful.
