CENTENNIAL HIGH SCHOOL- When we think of high school sports, the first places our minds go to are the well-known sports of football and volleyball. Basketball and soccer might then come to mind as well. Quite honestly, the reason we think of these sports first is because they are the most popular sports- the “favorites” of high schools all across the country. But why are these sports considered the most popular sports? What do they have that some of the other more underrepresented sports do not have?
Centennial Tennis Varsity player Aashikha Basappa has some thoughts on the matter.
“I guess it might be more entertaining to watch people tackle each other than watch two people hit a ball back and forth,” Basappa hypothesizes.
More entertaining sports get more audience attention, and this is the way it is in the high school sports field as well. However, this does not mean that the accomplishments of the other sports should be overlooked. Our tennis team, for example, is currently ranked higher on the state TTCA (Texas Tennis Coaches Association) than any other team in Titan tennis history.
“We’re currently ranked #4 on the TTCA rankings, the highest we’ve ever been,” Basappa discloses.
These accomplishments are a direct result of all the hard work these sports teams have been putting in for years, another fact that should not be overlooked.
Nidhi Kiran, Centennial Varsity Swim Team member reveals that her team “worked hard for days before state meets to go… super fast on [the days of the meet]”.
With events such as Homecoming being such huge celebrations at Centennial, the focus on sports like football keeps growing exponentially, resulting in dismissing the lesser-known sports of the school. Many students do not even know that Centennial has teams for sports such as tennis, swimming, bowling, golf, cross country, and others, and do not recognize the dedication these teams put in.
“I feel like a lot of people think that sports like tennis are easy but we work really hard and our team is good,” Basappa explains.
All of our Centennial student-athletes work immensely hard to represent our school in their sport in the best possible light, and they all deserve to be commended for their hard work. Typically, sports such as football and volleyball are able to be celebrated through pep rallies and other events, but all of the school’s sports teams deserve to have that type of spotlight as well. In fact, Centennial actually took a big step forward during our recent pep rally, with various sports such as tennis, football, volleyball, and cross country having the chance to speak to the school. Overall, it is important to remember that this is not just a Centennial issue; all high schools need to work towards embracing all their sports programs and acknowledge all their teams’ hard work and dedication.