By Cameron Krakowiak and Bay Dotson
Over the past decade, Director Phil Kassen and Director of Athletics Peter Fisher have worked to grow the LREI athletics department. What was once a school that begged kids to play on the field now has a respectable program with a bevy of recent league championships in track, soccer and volleyball. Currently, more than two-thirds of the student body participates in athletics. Just like every NYC school, the department has its own challenges at hand such as space, facilities and funding. Some students argue that one of the biggest problems facing LREI athletics is attendance at games and events.
On Friday, February 7th, during the Spirit Game, the gym was packed… with middle and lower school students and teachers. It appeared that the high school students that went felt obligated to be there by their coaches or only stayed for a short time. The jam-packed event, full of highlights, was a great opportunity for the school to come together. The high school teachers and the students playing enjoyed the atmosphere and the opportunity to interact with each other out of the classroom. So why didn’t more high school student spectators come out and support? The Knightly News spoke with Varsity Basketball player Aidhan Astrachan after the Spirit Game and asked him why students don’t come to sporting events. He responded with, “I’ve been trying to find the reason why for a while…They don’t think it’s important [be]cause it has nothing to do with them. They think it’s uncool.” Pinpointing an incentive to attend sporting events regularly is a challenge that some athletes want to address.
As the school is in the midst of Spirit Week, it’s often difficult to get the entirety of the school to participate. Peter Heinz, Assistant Athletic Director, and Peter Fisher often announce games and exciting upcoming events during morning meetings. The announcements help the student body to stay in touch with its athletics; however, it doesn’t change the lack of attendance at the sporting events. The Knightly News sat in on the Athletic Advisory Board X-Block with Peter Heinz, where students discussed possible tactics to engage their peers in sports going forward. The Athletic Advisory Board attempts to cultivate and create school spirit for students to go to games. However, it’s difficult for them to find an immediate solution. To the students, there is no incentive to go to sporting events, especially games that are away or not played in the Thompson Street Gym.
For Peter Heinz, school spirit and game attendance are not the same thing. He believes that “the school has a strong identity” and that the school’s identity is “manifest[ed] in our athletic program.” He points to the student government initiative for school sweatshirts and the social media coverage of sports as evidence that school spirit is high, and that people “want to represent the athletics program”. At the same time, Heinz believes that attendance at athletic events has not changed over the past ten years. He says that “school spirit is synonymous with school pride,” rather than attendance, as well as believing that, “classmates have to tell each other why attendance at their events matters.”
The Knightly News also spoke with recent alumni to see if school spirit and game attendance are experiencing a current lull. We asked Jared Sage ‘19 and Isabella Bullone ‘17, “During your time at LREI, did people stop going to sporting events?” Sage replied, “I don’t think people stopped going to sporting events more, they just never went to some. It’s difficult when some events are so far away. I think school spirit has always been somewhat of a struggle for EI. As a freshman I thought it lacked [spirit], but the school made tons of efforts to bring it up.” Bullone, an older alumni, had a different stance on what the school was like when she attended. “People always came to our sporting events (girls basketball and volleyball) because we were good… there is a total lack of school spirit but that’s because a lot of our teams aren’t at a level where it’s enjoyable and engaging to watch.” Sage and Bullone both make similar arguments that the sporting events aren’t as engaging to some students, just because they might be boring to watch.
For senior Onaje Grant-Simmonds, a non-athlete, school spirit is intimately connected to our school’s identity and philosophy. Grant-Simmonds agrees with student-athletes Sage, Astrachan and Bullone on the question of attendance: “From what I’ve seen recently, the bleachers are usually half empty during home basketball games… So I guess there is a lack of sporting spirit.” He elaborates, “We don’t have chants and hype. I feel that’s because of our school’s anti-traditionalist, anti-hierarchy philosophy.”
Junior Caleb Kohn-Blank expressed a similar sentiment: “I think there is just a lack of interest… I do some extracurriculars and I prioritize those.” Senior Mawena Tafa spoke about why she doesn’t go to games: “I really like watching the Varsity [Basketball] games but I have musical theater after school everyday.” When the Knightly News asked if she would go to games outside of Thompson she responded saying, “I did that once last year, but it was kind of weird because I was the only student not on the team.” When asked whether or not she’d want people to come see her play, she responded, “I was kind of indifferent about it.”
One explanation for the perceived issue could lie in the answers given by Tafa and Kohn-Blank: LREI’s programs allow students to do many extracurriculars at once, which, for a lot of students, including student-athletes, is an incentive to attend the school. Maybe it isn’t the fact that students don’t want to go to games, but instead that they can’t because of busy schedules. LREI shapes students to be independent, and if students don’t find sports interesting, they aren’t compelled to attend games. Because each and every student is independent and partakes in something different, it’s up to interpretation whether this is a lack of support for athletes or a fulfillment of LREI’s mission.