With fall sports well on their way and some fall sports even coming to an end, soccer hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves. 

For starters, our fields. At the beginning of the season, there were holes in the goalie boxes. They were reseeded during the summer so that grass would replace the holes and dirt mounds, but they were not watered enough. As a result, the grass died. Now, our goalies, both girls and boys, dive into dirt patches rather than grass. 

Not only are there dirt patches in our goalie boxes, but the grass isn’t always maintained. Long grass makes it hard to play our best. Since Elkhart Memorial only has one game field for both boys and girls soccer, it gets used a lot. At times, there are six or more games played on it a week. Such extensive use leads to the grass getting really matted down because it only gets cut once a week when it should be cut at least twice a week.

Our field isn’t in top shape and neither are our jerseys. Every sport was given the opportunity to order new jerseys for the last season of Elkhart Memorial sports, but the girls soccer team decided not to get new ones. Instead, we got our names on the back of our old jerseys, but we had to pay for the addition ourselves. Not only did we have to pay for that addition we also paid extra money to keep the jersey that our name was on. So where did all our money go? The money that we didn’t spend on new jerseys like every other team. It doesn’t feel like it went back into our program.

Lastly, the student section or lack thereof…teachers and students are not coming out to support our team. Last Thursday a tweet was sent out from EMHS Student Section saying “Come support Volleyball vs Northwood at Northwood.” Yet, the girls soccer had a HOME game that exact same day. 

At the end of the day, every sport should be treated and supported equally.

The views in this column do not necessarily reflect the views of the GENESIS staff. Reach Jahlea Douglas at [email protected].