There are sports we have all heard of and even partake in, such as football, soccer, and wrestling. What about the sports that don’t get as much recognition? These students and their non-traditional sports help make up FHC. Students may be scared to start a sport they are interested in out of fear of fitting a stereotype. Junior Gwendolyn Baker has been an avid fencer since her sixth-grade summer. Baker and her mom were looking for clubs she could potentially join in St. Louis when she tried out for a personal fencing lesson and ever since loved it. She mentions how branching out opened her up to a whole new world of opportunities and experiences because before she saw sports as a much more tapered box.
“I’d say [fencing] definitely changed my perspective on things a whole lot. It’s just like, I thought of sports as a much more narrow category, like football, basketball, I felt like it was very much a guy’s thing or more like tomboyish girls until, like, I started researching other sports, and I found fencing. It’s just very fun,” Baker said.
While she acknowledges the difficulties of branching out, especially as an introverted person in a mainly male-dominated sport, Baker is confident the positives far outweigh the negatives and she met some of her closest friends, all because she challenged herself to partake in something new.
“I would say just go for it,” said Baker.
Students who feel more inclined to take a risk and try something new, even if intimidated by the unknown, find out that the risk is worth the reward. This risk has allowed them to meet new people and expand their circles of people. Junior Danny Maher, the treasurer of the Ping Pong Club, has always played in informal settings but he just recently joined because his friends were in it. Although he’s been playing since he was little, Maher has learned a lot from the game.
“Back when I was a little kid, I used to play ping pong against my dad, and he would always destroy me, and I would get really mad about it,” Maher said. “But then I practiced and practiced and practiced until I could eventually beat him. And I don’t know, I thought that was really cool.”
These unique sports players allow for a new perspective. It gives students who might not enjoy typical mainstream sports a chance to shine, whilst still challenging players in unexpected ways. These creative sports prove competition isn’t always what is sociably expected, but instead outside of the box and just overall innovative, which is exactly what makes them deserving of the spotlight.
Many of these sports get overshadowed by other more circulated sports, whether that be because of low funding, lack of school programs, or just not being made aware. Derek Becker, a junior who has been a bowler for four years, addresses the lack of recognition that the bowling team receives in spite of the charming community.
“Not many people know that our school even has a team for [bowling]…It’s a lot harder than some people might think,” Becker said. “ Everyone’s really nice. It’s high fives, fist bumps to everything…like I really enjoy it. It’s a lot of fun to be there, and everyone’s pretty much real nice up there.”
Recognizing and supporting these unique sports would help break the stigma of what students perceive as a sport and can show that creativity, as well as competitions, come in many forms. Whether it is the agility in fencing, the creativity in ping pong, or the endurance in bowling, all of them have something you could take away from the game. These sports open the door to endless possibilities for students, and by giving them recognition, more students will realize there is a sport for them.
