I hold one of the most controversial viewpoints you can in the educational setting: sports are over-funded.

This leaves a strain on all other programs in schools. This not only relate to K-12 schools, but also colleges. Before I go off on a tangent, I want anyone reading this to be aware that I am not bashing sports, I am calling out schools on budget decisions. Also, I am only going to share examples from my personal experience, though I have heard similar experiences echoed by my fellow students from their respective schools.

Let's start with high school. In ninth grade, I joined the indoor track team. I loved it! I spent the whole season training as hard as I could, especially since I had never played a sport before. I only came in first place one time, but I didn't care--I was having fun running the races and cheering on/being cheered on by my teammates. At the end of that school year, all hopes of another season were crushed. Our school decided that we did not have the budget for "such a small team". Instead, they wanted to put the money into bigger, "better" sports--like football. I'm not bashing football, I actually love the sport. What got me was that they took a team who had to make cuts because there was so much interest, and threw it away.

Oh, but freshman year wasn't over with just that! They decided that they still didn't have enough money (yes, I recognize not all of it went to sports--just hear me out). So what did they do but cut our chorus director. She was not only the director of the high school chorus, but the middle school chorus as well. And she taught some music classes. This resulted in our band directors, both middle and high school, to stretch themselves so thin that they actually started to panic on multiple occasions. At this point, they barely had time for their students anymore, and finding time for band lessons was next to impossible.

Jump to my eleventh grade year and my high school (reluctantly) re-hired the chorus director. They were not reluctant because of her skill, but because they just weren't sure if they could afford it. After much backlash from the community and faculty--they re-hired her.

Now we get to college. Everything seemed fine! But then I got a taste of the sports world when someone very close to me joined the cheerleading team. I learned that our cheerleaders receive little-to-no respect from our campus community. They receive zero dollars in funding from the school, while the soccer and basketball teams are invested in heavily. This lack of funding results in the inability to perform stunts and to compete.

Because they receive no funding, they have no insurance. If a team does not have insurance, they are extremely limited in what stunts they can and cannot do, and there is no chance that they will be competing anywhere! When it comes to uniforms, the cheerleaders all had to purchase their own, while the basketball players receive new jerseys nearly every season, on top of the scholarship that they receive for playing in the first place!

If my point is not to bash sports, then what is it?

I want to raise awareness. I want to raise awareness for the little groups--the little groups who are forgotten. More often than not, I hear stories of music programs being completely dismantled, while sports programs grow at an insane rate. I was shocked when I heard that my college does not fund our cheerleaders.

But what can we do? We're just students.

Make. Your. Voices. Heard.

I submitted a proposal to our Student Senate. On February 10th, there will be ("there will have been", by the time this is published) a meeting and vote to see if the student body representatives feel there should be a change in the funding policy for the cheerleaders. If your school does not have a Student Senate, then make a petition. Get 50+ signatures from students who want to see the same change.

Get Involved.

I joined the Student Senate. I want a say in what happens at my school. I want to be the representative for the groups whose voices are so small, they are barely heard and/or brushed aside.

I want to make a difference. Do you?