In the yearbook last year, boys and girls basketball received 9 pages of spreads, while cheer and cross country received 4 pages. One would expect that the cheer team was underwhelming that year, but Cheer was particularly successful in 2022-23, winning 4/4 smaller competitions and taking 2nd at state last year. Personally, when my team and I won 2nd in state for cheerleading, I was half hoping, and half expecting some recognition in BNN or a morning meeting, but nothing happened. The cross country was quite successful too, breaking multiple school records, making state, and winning their conference meet. Despite these huge successes, basketball receives much more recognition, in the yearbook, in-school presentations, pep rallies, school events, and the list goes on. So, why is that?
One possibility is that Basketball is simply more entertaining to the community. Due to cheer’s short performances and XC’s difficult format, it's difficult to support and join the sports culture that accompanies sports events. It’s hard to get amped up and spirited when you can only see the people you’re cheering for for a few minutes. For example, cross country athlete Hayden Deschler commented, “You could spend more money on XC, but it wouldn’t necessarily make students want to come to events…that’s something intrinsic, and I don’t think that’s going to change.” With basketball, lasting for upwards of multiple hours, it is much easier to join what might be called “sports culture,” and support the individual team members. American sports culture also contributes, due to its undeniable role in society, but it excludes smaller sports like cheer and cross country. In short, going to sports events is just what people do, and this focus on what could be called the “Big 3” of sports, basketball, baseball, and football, extends to American culture as a whole. In short, going to sports events seems to be what people do. , basketball, in particular, is also very relatable, many people have played basketball, at least casually, before, but a lot of people haven’t held up a girl 7 feet in the air, or run a 5k in 20ish minutes. Basketball is a fairly ubiquitous experience in America, whereas cheer and cross country are not. Even in CHSAA, the Colorado High School Activities Association, cheer is often sidelined. To summarize, some sports might be sidelined due to a larger American sports culture and the nature of sports themselves.
Another possibility is that due to the lack of a football team at DSST Cedar, basketball serves as a replacement. Athletic director “Coach” Ndiaye explains, “DSST does not care about athletics. A lot of middle schoolers don’t come to the high school because we don’t have sports.” The students who do come to the high school miss out on a stereotypical high school experience without the iconic American sport. So, attention is diverted to the next most popular sport that the school offers, basketball.
One particularly concerning reason is it could also be a conflict between genders. Undoubtedly, men’s sports in general are supported more than women’s, likely due to major differences in exposure and marketing for women’s sports. Most notably though, there are many widespread sexist perceptions about women’s athleticism, and it's reflected in audiences at men’s and women’s sports events at DSST Cedar. It’s not uncommon to hear boys' comments about their counterparts’ performance and skill. While there isn’t a super obvious conflict between boys' and girls' teams, the effect of biased perceptions is undeniable. I’ve noticed that the crowd is usually bigger at boys' games than those of girls. This thinly-veiled sexism also extends to cheerleading, since it is a female-dominated sport. While the perception of cheer is slowly evolving past poms and chants and poster-perfect Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, many people don’t take cheerleading seriously. In a word, deep-rooted perceptions of women's sports contribute a lot to unspoken favoritism of men's sports.
The exact reason is, evidently, difficult to pin down, but some other factors that might contribute, but have less weight are, that basketball and volleyball games financially contribute directly to the school, through concessions and tickets. Cheer competitions are often at other schools, or event centers like the Denver Coliseum, and XC meets are often at parks. Admittedly, sports’ financial contribution is negligible in the bigger scheme of school debt. Finally, it could simply be that our community values affinity groups like BSA or HLSA, since affinity groups and committees take up a much larger percentage of the yearbook (~40%, whereas sports take up ~20%). However, there are at least 10 different committees that play much larger roles in the community, so their recognition in the yearbook is warranted.
All this is not to say that cheer and XC deserve more recognition than other sports, or that we deserve 20 spreads in the yearbook, or that basketball and its players are worse. Basketball, soccer, volleyball, cross country, and cheer, all deserve equal recognition for their accomplishments and achievements. As Cross Country runner Hayden Deschler puts it, “I wish we could focus less on the type of sport, and more on the effort that every athlete puts in.” All athletes put in so much physical and mental effort to contribute to their respective sports, and all athletes deserve equal recognition for their dedication.
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