With the challenge of school functions and sickness faced by students planning to try out for spring sports, coaches and students alike had to find a compromise between the two events. Last week, tryouts for badminton, soccer, and track and field took place, with students competing for the limited varsity slots offered by the sports teams. However, beyond the regular competitiveness, school function and sickness also presented problems for attendance.

“Usually, due to the big nature of track and field, tryouts for track and field are stretched out to encompass cuts from soccer and badminton,” Carson Park (12), varsity track and field captain, said. “Due to track and field having a larger team composition this year, we have a competitive team and an uncompetitive team. We don’t really deal with the standard tryout system, so the overlapping events weren’t that big of a problem.”

However, other sports were not as fortunate—especially boys badminton varsity, the tryout dates directly overlapped with the National Honor Foundation (NHF) performance as many potential athletes play an instrument and are a part of the band, string, or choir. They were mandated to participate in the performance, which was a two-day occasion where students had to miss school to attend; therefore, they could not participate in certain tryouts. 

To address this, some coaches decided to simply increase the number of days of tryoutto provide at least one slot for individuals who wished to try out. For boys badminton, there were a total of three tryout dates compared to the traditional two, as too many students would have to miss the original dates. This allowed for relatively sound participation despite the challenges with scheduling.

Other than school functions, sickness was also a primary hindrance for participants in the tryouts. The school had recently seen a few rounds of the cold, and with many individuals being in suboptimal or unserviceable conditions, desired performances were not reached, if they could attend at all.