West: No Girl’s Tennis, Waiting for Ruling on the Fate of Girl’s Golf.
Aug. 11, 2008 @ 5:16 p.m. by jlongBy J. Long
We received an email from Marsha Olmsted, West Athletic Director letting us know that unfortunately the school won’t field a tennis team this season, but is working on a collabo with South that would give any girls who are interested in golf a chance to play.
She’s waiting to hear from the Kansas State High School Activities Association for approval. The Co-Op would allow athletes from West to participate as part of Souths’ team during the regular season, but represent West in the postseason.
While I don’t understand why they can play as a team during the regular season, but must split up for post season play I do hope that KSHSAA approves the request.
You never want to see a sport die. So often so much attention is paid to revenue generating sports and what they mean to a school and community that smaller sports are overlooked. I know that tennis nor golf will ever be as popular as football, but don’t tell little Staisha Miller that golf doesn’t matter. Kids who participate in the lesser-known sports should have the same opportunity’s as their peers.
Basketball, and Football aren’t the only sports that give kids something constructive to do or that help teach valuable life lessons.
I hope KSHSAA does the right thing on this. It seems like an easy decision, however you never really can tell.
August 11th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
“While I don’t understand why they can play as a team during the regular season, but must split up for post season play I do hope that KSHSAA approves the request.”
It’s so that teams don’t form “super-teams” to form an advantage towards state titles. I know that this isn’t an instance of that, but if you allowed them to form a team from two schools that competed into the postseason, then you know that Bishop Carroll would complain and whine forever until they were allowed to pair up with Kapaun to form an actual “super-team”. And no, I didn’t just used BC as an example, because that’s exactly who would be the first school to do it.
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August 12th, 2008 at 6:32 am
rock: thanks for the laugh. If you knew anything about BC you would know that their biggest rival is Kapaun; they want to stomp Kapaun, not partner with them. Nice try.
More to the point: it would be sad if these kids are not given an opportunity to compete.
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August 12th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
West needs all the help they can get and hopefully they will let the kids play.
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August 12th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
One issue in combining schools for postseason play is classification. In this case, the West kids would play on a South team that is already 6A, so probably no harm done. But what happens if two schools combine, and their combined enrollment would throw them into a higher classification than what either one normally has? At what classification would they compete in the postseason, in fairness to all the other schools, if they were allowed to continue as a joint squad ? I think KSHSAA’s stance of allowing it in certain situations in the regular season, but not the postseason, is a good compromise. It gives some kids a chance to play who wouldn’t otherwise, but does not give an unfair advantage to a combo that could theoretically siphon off the best from two schools to compete for a state title against teams that have only one school to draw from.
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