The Forgotten Sport Plays in a Nearly Empty Gym

By Lauren Richards –

Imagine you’re on the girls basketball team.

It’s game night, you’re playing your rival. You’re having a great game and you end up scoring the game-winning basket, but the crowd doesn’t go wild.

For a lot of teenagers, basketball games are a regular occurrence on a Friday night.

Boys basketball games, that is.

While students fill the bleachers to cheer on boys basketball, the girls basketball team has to play with a crowd of mostly parents. Girls basketball takes a backseat to boys basketball in high school sports and the girls basketball team has their opinions about this. There isn’t a definite explanation as to why, but it’s apparent that, to students, boys basketball trumps girls.

Devin Yecker, a senior on the girls varsity basketball team, said she’s bothered by the lack of attention her team gets.

“They announce guys away games and not girls home games,” Yecker said,  “I hate it.”

Girls basketball team tips off with empty bleachers. Photo by Davor.

There’s never a big crowd at girls basketball games, not even close to the amount at boys. The team agreed that they usually have about 25-30 spectators.

“We usually only have parents come,” said Hannah Willett of the varsity girls basketball team.

Willett said that the lack of fans doesn’t bother her.

“I can understand why people don’t come to our games, it’s a little boring to watch,” Willett said.

Abby Newport, senior on the girls varsity team, agrees with her teammates that the school should show more support for the girls teams.

“It bothers me a lot,” Newport said.

Student sections are notorious for making the game more intense, pumping players up and motivating teams to play harder. Most high school athletes will tell you that large crowds containing student sections help them play better, the girls basketball team agrees with this even though they never get the luxury of that kind of support.

“We play well when people come,” Willett said.

Sarah Nagy agreed with her teammate, “I think we’d play better if more people came, it’d be more intense.”

Girls basketball may not be as popular to watch as boys, but the girls team feels they should still be acknowledged. They work hard and play hard, even with the lack of fans.

“Penn Manor girls basketball is amazing,” Nagy said, “I think we’re better than the recognition we get.”

3 thoughts on “The Forgotten Sport Plays in a Nearly Empty Gym”

  1. Isn’t the girls basketball season over? poor timing for this article…also there wasnt much of a conclusion.

  2. If you’re going to mention one forgotten sport, you need to mention them all. There are plenty of other sports that don’t get ANY recognition. Bowling, golf, swimming, softball all don’t get the recognition they “deserve.” We work as hard as any other team and never have any of the student body come to cheer us on. The excuse of, “There was a basketball game” isn’t valid because our meets aren’t at the same time as the games. Don’t write biased articles. At least girls basketball got a small student section for one game. Swimming has never had one.

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