In the past, female athletic programs at Free State have maintained steady participation; however, recent involvement in girls sports has become noticeably low. Due to this, coaches and athletes have taken the initiative to recruit more players for their teams.
One of the programs most affected by this is the girls basketball team. Two years ago, when Summer Frantz took the position of head coach, her goal was to rebuild the program and get them to winning ways; however, due to decreased participation, she said this is becoming a slower process.
According to Frantz, the main reason for the lack of participation is because students decide to specialize in other sports and compete in them year round. With basketball being part of the winter season, the overlap between club sports such as volleyball, soccer or swimming replaces it.
“The last few years, we’ve seen a lower number of girls basketball players, not just here, but in Lawrence in general … and we’ve really tried to address that by starting them young and doing some community outreach camps that sort of deal with the younger players,” Frantz said.
For Frantz, engagement with the community is what she hopes will be the solution for the issue. Recently, the team has been working on building a community with middle school basketball players.
”Our high school girls have done a really good job of building relationships with some of those middle school players and younger players.”
Furthermore, role models often inspire young athletes to pursue sports. Whether that is someone that’s close like family; someone from the local community; or a professional athlete, the aspirations of young athletes come from these people.
When Senior Daijah Preston, a third year varsity wrestler, started her wrestling campaign during her freshman year, she was inspired by alumnus Madyson Gray, a three-time high school state champion. Like Gray, Preston said she hopes to be in her position someday and inspire other young girls in the Lawrence community.
Over the years Preston has been on the team, it has grown from three to ten wrestlers in 4 years. Despite still being a small unit, Preston noted that the dynamic was tight knit. Preston and her teammates make it their duty every season to spread the word to their underclassmen to join the team.
“I like to advocate for [wrestling] because… it’s one of the fastest growing sports in America right now in high school sports,” Preston said.
In the pool, after adding only three freshmans out of the 20 total swimmers in their roster last season, the two time state championship winning girls swim and dive program also finds itself competing with popular sports for the spring season .
“We have really just tried to reach out to anyone we know that might be interested. For boys, Swim and Dive, it’s very popular because it’s a winter sport and there’s not a lot of sports going on at the time. For girls, it’s a lot harder because we’re competing with track and girls soccer, so it’s challenging for us to get girls,” varsity swimmer senior Jocelyn Wilson said.
For Wilson, it is the community support and sports culture at a school that pushes an athlete to succeed. When Wilson swims at a home meet, amongst her supporters are her teammates, family and close friends; however, what she felt missing was the student support she knows when comparing it to student sections for programs like boys football and soccer.
“Compared to football and soccer, everyone’s there, everyone’s cheering. It’s like a big deal, and [for us] it’s just not as big of a deal,” Wilson said.
For Frantz, Preston and Wilson, they will continue to advocate for recruiting athletes despite the challenges they face. For students who want to try out a sport in high school for the first time, Franz shared a piece of advice.
“I would just say, try it, you’ll never regret things that you try, you’ll just regret the things that you don’t try,” Franz said.
