For most players, their pre-game can affect the way they perform in a game. I am one of those players. For soccer, we always play a CD that the captains made for all the home games. My teammates and I stayed up for days to cut and edit the music to ensure we would have it done for our home opener. Surprisingly, we finished it! The last thing to do to make sure that the music was able to play was to get it approved by our athletic director. The team was thrilled to hear the music got approved and was pumped to hear it during our warm-ups later that day.

Central was hosting many home openers that evening. Lacrosse played on the back field and baseball played CBC to the right of the soccer field. The soccer game started at six, so we had to be there an hour early for warm-ups. As the minutes wound down, the anticipation grew. I was excited to get into “game mode” with our music. Finally, the clock hit zero and it was time for us to start warm ups. I waited for the speakers to start playing the music, but they were silent.

After our game, we were told that the baseball coaches said our music was too distracting to their players, so a new rule was made stating there will be no music played unless there is no other activities happening at that time. That rule wasn’t enforced for the entire year. Boys soccer played their warm-up music while softball played games during their season. Many other sports throughout the year played music during their warm-ups even with other games or practices happening. Soccer has never had a problem with playing music until this year, so why is it all of the sudden such a big deal?

I understand baseball is the type of sport where a lot of focus is needed. Batting in itself takes a great amount of focus and self control. That’s why at first I wasn’t that upset about our music getting cut off until, during the soccer game I heard the speakers by the baseball field play music in between innings and for players walking up to bat. The baseball team was allowed to play its music during other events, but other sports couldn’t?

If the music was such a big distraction toward a sport like baseball, why didn’t softball complain about the music the boys soccer team was playing? The two sports are very similar in the focus needed and the rules. There is only one huge difference between the baseball and softball team, gender.

Sometimes it’s easy to see the difference in the way the boys sports teams are treated than the girls. Many of the boys teams get perks that the girls could only dream of. I’ve seen boys sports teams with personalized jerseys, banners, and other things that the girls have been asking for. I would love to know what the boys did to receive such special treatment. People try to argue that it’s because the boys teams are better than the girls teams. They also say the team with the better record should get better treatment. If that is the case then girls soccer team would be getting the better treatment compared to the boys soccer and the baseball team.

There is always going to be some sort of rivalry between boy and girl athletes, that’s only normal. The school should be treating the teams the same way. With some sports being more popular than others, this isn’t always that easy. But without each sport being treated the same, there will continue to be issues.

My last home game for soccer was not scheduled during a home baseball game. Sadly my teammates and I were excited to be the only home event that night. Our school should want to host as many home games at the same time, but that isn’t the case because of the constant conflict. Since there was storms earlier that day, they were moved to play at home. Somehow baseball still got their way that game, still no warm up music. My team was devastated. The only thing that broke the silence of our warm up was the music filled speakers by the baseball fields.