Photo by Rylee Cowie and Jenny Champeau
by Sophia Togneri
In many sports, Hudson High School just doesn’t win. It’s a fact. This fall, only one team out of six even had a winning record. It’s not just this year either. For the past couple years Hudson hasn’t matched up to the schools we play against.
For years, Hudson High School has kept a no-cut policy in the athletic program for most sports, not including basketball, ice hockey and volleyball. This allows for everybody who wants to join a sport, no matter their skill level, to play. This, however, is not fair to some of the student athletes that are more dedicated to their sport at the school.
Without a cut policy the players do not feel pressure to try as hard as they can at practice, already knowing that they can still play, even without trying.
This year the volleyball team hired a new coach, and even though volleyball is one of the sports that has cuts, this new coach did not want to cut anybody. Therefore the team’s situation was the same as that of a sport with no cuts.
“It’s a slap in the face,” said senior volleyball player Thalita Campelo. “I was there for every practice whereas people who weren’t there every practice were getting playing time over me.”
This also puts the team at a disadvantage during the season, since the coaches have to start from scratch. They have to prepare the team not only mentally in terms of strategy and new skills, but physically as well. That means that the team has to work on the basics before they get to the more advanced material.
“It’s a learn-to-skate kind of practice,” Alyssa Thibeault, a JV hockey player explained. “We just work on edges and learning how to stop. I don’t need to learn how to skate. I have to learn more hockey-based skills, but I have a lot of beginners on my team and they need to learn how to skate. We can’t divide the practices because we’re a team. I’m not really benefitting from the practices because we’re just reviewing things I already know.”
Many argue, however, that adopting a cut policy would deprive the players who get cut the opportunity that high school sports are supposed to provide them. They believe that everybody deserves a chance and to take that away from the players is not fair. High school is supposed to be an inclusive community and to make cuts in sports eliminates that sense of inclusion.
While the no-cut policy claims to give all athletes access to the sport, that is not really true.
Joining a team does not guarantee that all the athletes are going to get playing time. A survey I passed out to 96 varsity and junior varsity student athletes at Hudson High School showed that on multiple varsity teams more than 50% of the players did not play in half the games. For these students, they are placed in a situation where they do not get any better or any worse. Why even be on the team?
“When you get on varsity, the coach is putting the best team on the floor every day to win that meet, match, whatever it is,” said Jessica Winders, the Hudson High School Athletic Director. “I’m not worried about equal playing time or if everybody gets playing time at those levels.”
It is policy in the athletic program for every coach to have a conversation with each player and to be honest about what their role is going to be for the season. For many kids, at any level, not playing is a distinct reality. They go to practice, may not even get into all of the drills, and when it comes game time they don’t play there either.
Instead of putting these less skilled players on the team, they should be cut, and they should be aware of what they have to work on for the upcoming season to improve themselves. The no-cut policy does not allow for the less skilled athletes to be told what skills they need to improve on because they do not get a lot of playing time.
It is also that lack of skill that could potentially hold them back. Even though they are on the team, as the no-cut policy allows, they might not participate as much either. They are part of the team, but they do not take part in the games or practices, as some of the other players do.
At this age, sports are supposed to be competitive, and by allowing for everybody to be on a team, we are eliminating the competitive aspect of the game and bringing the whole team down.
“We need to get to a place where we’re more competitive,” Winders said. “Across the board, in every sport.”
It is a well known fact that Hudson does not often match up to some of its neighboring schools like Nashoba and Wachusett. Both of these schools have cut policies in their athletic programs.
Only the players that are skilled enough to make the team should. Those dedicated players want to win. That want to win pushes them to improve, therefore improving the overall team.
“[There is] a kind of understanding of how dedicated you have to be to your sport,” softball and volleyball captain Meghan Cadden said. “You’re all on the same basis about how you want to play.”
In other words, all of the athletes on the team will have the same level of dedication. They want to win.
The only way to become a more competitive school is to create the most competitive teams that we can. We can accomplish that by only taking the best players in the school on our teams. A cut policy would ensure that.