Coming from a sport crazed family, I was spending time in a gym before I could walk. My two older brothers played basketball constantly, and I saw more games than I can count. The thrill of the games and the energy the crowd displayed psyched me up. As soon as I was old enough, I started playing sports myself. My two older brothers taught me to never back down and play as hard as I could at all the time. We would often go the high school games together and cheered on Holyoke. At that time, I could not wait to get to the high school level and play with the crowd cheering for me and my team. However upon entering high school I noticed something at the games. When going to the girl’s game I got a completely different vibe then I did when I attended the boy’s game, and I think that is what bothers me the most about being a women athlete: the fan support.

A perfect example of this is what happened last year, when the Holyoke High girls and boys teams were both playing in the Western Massachusetts Semi Final basketball game at AIC. The girl’s team was scheduled on the first night of the tournament while the boy’s team was scheduled for the next night. Holyoke’s crowd for the girl’s game was mainly family members and few friends. Their opponent was their chief rival, Chicopee. Chicopee came to the game with a large student group known as the “Pacer Pound.” Equipped with their mascot and the crowd chanting, Chicopee fed of the energy the crowd was giving them and overtook Holyoke in the second half and surged to victory. The next night a fan bus of Holyoke students was taken to the boys game at AIC, where the gym was a packed house. Hundreds of students from our school had painted faces, the school colors on and cow bells which rocked the gym. Even though the boys did not win, they received support that the girls team could off used the previous night. Granted, the Chicopee boy’s season had concluded and maybe the students rallied behind the girl’s team but would the “Pacer Pound” have been there otherwise? I am not sure that they would have been.

Most recently I was participating in a holiday tournament in Longmeadow. The Longmeadow boy’s team played prior to the girls, the fans attending the boy’s game had to be escorted into a section which filled up one side of the gym. At the conclusion of the game, these fans so excited to see the boys play filed out and left. This mass exodus delayed the start of the girl’s game, because they were on the edges of the court.

This action by fans does not make sense to me. It in fact irritates me. Why would a sport fan just watch the boys play and then get up and leave? Why would you not support females as you do males? Wondering if it is in every school, I asked a friend of mine from Chicopee Comp if the same thing happens at her school and she went on to tell me that “The boys team is doing far worse than the girls team but still manages to draw a bigger crowd.” Perplexed about this, I asked my friend Endy Sanchez a junior at Suffield Academy, why he thinks this happens? “Boys basketball tends to be more physical and faster, people are able to hold attention longer, I personally do not think it should be like that but it is.” I agree it should not be like that especially since I play basketball, I know how intense and fast pace a game can be especially if it is two strong teams playing. I have heard that social media may play a role, and boys will hype the game more, tweeting about it and posting comments. To that my response is LOL!! Sadly, I know that this is not the case. I am part of a team, I see my teammates tweeting every time we have a game asking people to come and support us but still we receive little fan support.

Title IX has brought the women athlete a great way since its inception 41 years ago. But something is not resonating with fans, students and the community. Women athletes play a high caliber of sports. Their desire to win is as strong as it is in their male counterparts. They train as hard as males. They suffer through injuries as the boys do. Do these girls not deserve support? I can say for all female athletes that it would be nice to have a little respect so come out and see a game! Our next home game is Friday, February 7th at 7! Hope to see you there!