In September, PSAL sent out a student interest survey to all NYC public high schools. The goal of this survey was to see student’s interests in sports and use that to help start new teams. FLHS students, along with many NYC students, have requested sports like badminton, boys golf, boys table tennis, robotics, pickleball, e-sports, and cheerleading.
According to NYC Public Schools, PSAL (Public Schools Athletic League) organizes and takes care of sports competitions between all NYC public schools. They offer NYC schools with a total of 25 sports, but not all schools participate in all 25 of them. The Moises Jimenez et al. v New York City Department of Education Lawsuit, students filed complaints stating that the DOE and PSAL violated NYC Human Rights Law due to their unfair and unequal treatment of Black and Latinx high school students from the few sports teams available to them yet was available to other races and ethnicities. Due to this, PSAL implemented the All Access program to increase all NYC high schools’ access to PSAL sports, which was the reason why the survey was sent out.
“I think that’s a very proactive approach, which is good because I guess they are trying to be inclusive,” said Mr. Khan, the Boys Bowling Varsity and Co-ed Cricket Coach. “Trying to gauge student interest to understand, because every school is different and every demographic of the school is different, so one sport might be very in demand in one school and not in another school. I think it was a good way to gauge what the student’s interest is.”
The survey allows for students to have a say in the sports at their school, involving students in this process.
“I think that it’s a great opportunity for people to get to vote on what becomes a sport because there are not a lot of sports available in the school,” said Chelsea Villarroel, a girls cross country athlete. “I wished that there was gymnastics because that’s a sport I like, so this gives an opportunity for students to get to vote on this kind of stuff.”
Adding, more sports in schools will not only benefit the school but the students as well.
“I think that [including] as many sports as a school can provide can be great. It gives a lot of students more opportunity to showcase their skills, learn about sports, and try to get scholarships for colleges,” explained Coach Leto, girls soccer varsity coach.
An effort has been made to request more sports in the past, but they have been denied due to the PSAL prioritization of schools with fewer teams.
“If you look at the schools and the amount of sports that they offer, we offer more than most schools,” said Mrs. Zacco, Francis Lewis High School’s Athletic Director. “I think that we could have more, but it’s been difficult because the PSAL would not allow large schools like ours, who already have 30+ teams, to have more teams while some schools have 0-5. But, this year they gave us the opportunity to apply to more teams, so we did.”
According to the Francis Lewis High School Student Parent Handbook, the school offers baseball, basketball, bowling, cricket, cross country, fencing, flag football, golf, handball, indoor track, outdoor track, soccer, softball, swimming, table tennis, volleyball, and wrestling. Most sports have junior varsity and varsity and boys and girls teams, adding up to about 30 teams.
“I think that 35 sports teams plus cheerleading, 36, is a great number of sports,” said Coach Leto. “I’m sure a lot of other schools don’t even have anywhere near that amount and I think that that is a lot of teams and a lot of different sports.”
With the large number of sports at Francis Lewis High School, the importance of this survey changes, specifically in relation to our school.
“I don’t think the survey impacts the school as much as it would a smaller school,” said Mrs. Zacco. “We applied for the sports that most students have asked for, so we did apply for like 6 more sports; some of them being Boys Golf and Boys Table Tennis. We also applied for a robotics team, ‘cause the PSAL is trying to do a robotics team, like non-sporty sports events, so we applied for all of those as well.”
Although providing more sport options to students will greatly benefit them, it comes with its own set of disadvantages and challenges, one of which is practice space.
“I think it goes back to the same thing. I know when we started cricket, the issue for the other coaches was where are you going to practice cricket and what space are you going to take, so the spacing is definitely an issue,” said Coach Khan. “I understand that it’s not ideal and I know it’s an inconvenience to the baseball team, I know it’s an inconvenience to the flag football team, but the cricket team has to practice, so I think that that’s the issue with any additional new sports: people will fight over the space.”
For NYC students, there is still an alternative option to play sports that the school doesn’t offer: individual access.
“Any team that there’s available, if a student wants to play and we don’t offer it, they can go through individual access and play for another school,” Mrs. Zacco explained. “In the 20 years I’ve been doing this at PSAL, last year was the first time they’ve ever offered it, which is nice since we’re never going to have football here [due to limited space] so if a kid wants to play football and they can play, that’s great. It’s a great opportunity for them.”
With the possibility of new sports teams being added to Francis Lewis and students getting the opportunity to still play a sport of their own choosing, students are able to expand their high school sport experience to new heights.
As Villarroel said, “With the addition of sports, I think that it gives more variety to pick, and more sports available makes it easier for people to participate.
