Dance, Diving, Alpine, and Wrestling. Park students may not recognize these as high school sports, as they are not varsity programs offered by the school.

 Although these sports mentioned above may seem like uncommon high school sports, they are programs offered by many metro area schools. Park had wrestling and a dive team in the past. The dive team was cut 12 years ago and wrestling was cut more than 15 years ago. They were cut partially because of a lack of funding and Title IX requirements, but primarily due to insufficient participation in the sports.

 “This is why [other] sports are not offered by Park,” said Andy Ewald, the athletic director for Park.

 Ewald said that having many athletic programs at Park is difficult due to the size of the school.

 “It’s difficult to offer everything [athletic program wise] at a school like SLP. We actually offer a lot of sports for a school our size, maybe too many,” according to Ewald.

 At around 1200 students, Park is one of the smallest public high schools in the Twin Cities.Yet Park still manages to offer many of the sports that other larger schools are able to offer. In fact, two of Park’s most competitive teams- nordic skiing and synchronized swimming, with their second and third place state finishes in 2014- are not offered by many other public and private high schools in the state. There are 14 synchro teams and 98 nordic ski teams, with around 490 high schools in Minnesota, according to the Minnesota State High School League.

 Not having some of these programs forces some athletes from Park to go elsewhere to participate in the sport or to find a new activity. These have included boys lacrosse players, who play their sport on a private, club team, not affiliated with the high school.

 According to Junior Jack Breyak, an association lacrosse player, although club lacrosse has its positives, not having it as a Park sport makes it less prominent in the school.

 “Club lacrosse was easy to schedule, but if it were a Park sport I feel that more people would show up to [watch] games and it would get more respect,” Breyak said.

 Ever since the dive team was cut 12 years ago, it has not only affected those interested in diving. The lack of the team has also put the boys and girls swim teams at a disadvantage against programs that have dive teams, as divers can score points which can be critical to the team’s total.

 Junior Mark Truskinovsky, a swimmer, said the lack of a dive team is partially negative, as it deprives the team of points, but it also has a positive side.

“While a dive team can get 13 points, which can make the difference between a win and a loss, being down several points from the start allows the team to realize the importance of each swimmer’s performance,” Truskinovsky said.