Park offers 27 different varsity-level sports, but this is less than some of the surrounding schools. Park should offer more varsity sports because they provide students with opportunities to improve physical health and increase community engagement. Not every student can excel in traditional sports like football or basketball, so expanding varsity options allows more students to participate. I believe that everyone should compete in a sport because it helps you build good life skills like teamwork, discipline and resilience. A wider range of school sports means more chances for students and families to engage in school culture and create a stronger sense of Park pride. So, whether Park decides to add the sports that will be mentioned, they should work and find an extracurricular activity that everyone feels passionate about.
The first sport Park should add is wrestling. Wrestling offers participants the opportunity to develop life skills like mental discipline in a tough physical environment. Park wouldn’t have any trouble finding opponents, as plenty of other schools around the metro area already have wrestling programs, including our cross-town rivals Benilde-St. Margaret’s. Offering wrestling would open doors to potential scholarships and college programs. 77 D1 schools have wrestling programs and over 400 colleges nationwide have programs as well. Adding wrestling would give boys and girls another outlet to thrive, grow and represent Park. It would help Park students stay active and engaged in a structured environment.
Another sport Park should add is dance. Dance is a combination of athleticism and artistry, offering students a creative way to express themselves while displaying school spirit. Like other varsity sports, dance requires strength, flexibility and endurance to perform high flying kicks and overall dance routine. Furthermore, dance helps build teamwork due to needing to stay in sync and be dedicated to routines. Park should add dance because it recognizes the athleticism and dedication of dancers while allowing more students to get involved in a school sport. Park should dance due to the fact that plenty of people that go to Park already do dance, but they have to do it through a club team because Park doesn’t offer it. Similar to wrestling, many other schools in the metro have a dance team and finding competition would not be difficult.
Park should add fencing. Fencing requires quick thinking skills under pressure. Fencing is called “physical chess” due to the fact that it is assumed that each fencer has the same chance to win, but winning is solely a result of superior strategy and preparation, like chess. Fencing requires quick decision-making and anticipating your opponent’s moves. If Park were to add fencing, it would provide a different unique challenge that traditional sports sometimes lack. Fencing permits students who don’t want to compete physically to compete mentally. Park should add fencing to add some diversity and depth to the sports offerings here at Park. Unlike the first two sports mentioned, fencing is not widely available in surrounding programs so Park would have to travel further to the matches.
Park should add a wider range of sports so that all students can participate in athletic extracurricular activities. Adding more varsity-level sports can bolster school spirit while providing students more opportunities to earn athletic scholarships.
