Campus sporting inequality
There is no doubt that school sports such as football and basketball draw the most attention, often representing a school’s entire athletic program. But with so much attention given to these “popular” sports, it is extremely difficult for lesser-known sports to gain the recognition they train equally hard for.
For example, at schools with strong athletics such as Mater Dei High School, the Monarch football team has become the face of their school. Backed by their performance on the field, MDHS has rightfully earned their title as one of the best high school football teams in the nation. However, what people fail to recognize is the sheer dominance of MDHS’s other “small” sports, such as their water polo team, who finished their 2021 season fourth in California with a 27-5 overall record.
Such an environment exists at Diamond Bar High School as well. Though Branding Iron is a popular way to showcase our Brahma pride, other smaller sports at DBHS deserve equal time under the spotlight.
Among many other lesser known sports on campus, the DBHS swim team finished their 2021 season as the undefeated Hacienda League Champions, even making a trip to the Division I CIF Championships. Despite their success, the team still lacks recognition, partially due to how rarely their successes are represented on social media.
Having already begun the 2022 season, the swim team has received little attention on the official DBHS instagram page, whereas other “popular” sports such as football, basketball and baseball have posts for every game.
Adding onto the team’s lack of representation on social media, insufficient funding from the school has led to many financial problems. Because of broken equipment and a lack of money to fix it, the swim team was forced to schedule extra away meets to make up for the cancellation of a recent home meet. Additionally, many team members had to give extra donations so that the team would have enough money to compete in an invitational meet. The same scenarios can be applied to other sports as well, including volleyball, badminton and track and field.
Yearlong performing arts sports such as color guard similarly struggle to earn attention, even despite performing at every football game and multiple competitions.
However, to truly grow a school sport’s recognition, athletes must take initiative. A great way to increase campus acknowledgement is to create a larger social media presence. Athletes could create social media profiles and post fliers to bring more attention to the successes of their sport.
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