An athlete stands on the sidelines and watches their teammates, many of them freshmen and sophomores, battle the rival school. This athlete is a senior and has been on the team since they were an underclassman, so why are they not on the field?
Senior Logan McNeill has struggled firsthand with this. He played boys’ lacrosse at Northwood for almost three years until he recently quit the team during his second year of being on varsity.
“I had devoted a lot of time prior to senior year, and I didn’t get a lot of playing time, so I quit,” McNeill said. “[My playing time] kind of increased up until senior year, and I don’t know the reason for not playing me but… none of the coaches wanted to play me.”
Although it is unusual for an athlete to quit their senior year, it is not unusual for a senior to see their playing time decrease. Many athletes thrive on JV teams until their sophomore or junior year, but when they move up to varsity, they watch their playing time get cut. A likely culprit is already experienced underclassmen who enter their freshman year with the skills of a varsity athlete.
Head boys’ lacrosse coach Kevin McDaniel had much to say on the issue.
“Over half of our starting lineup is sophomores and below, and again, that’s because these kids have been playing at a lot younger age, so they already come with the lacrosse background,” McDaniel said. “It might be different in other sports, but to get good at lacrosse, you’re not going to find out that you’re good until your third or fourth year of actually playing the sport. If you pick it up as a freshman, you’re not going to even be able to compete until your senior year; meanwhile, we have kids picking it up in fifth and sixth grade, so when they come in as a freshman, they’ve already figured it all out, so that’s why we have a lot of underclassmen playing. It’s because they’ve played for so long. I have a lot of upperclassmen who just picked it up, so you can’t expect to be as good as the person that has been [playing for a long time]. It’s a skilled game; it takes a lot of practice.”
Junior Arthur Goncalves has played varsity boys’ soccer for one year now and has already seen the impact of underclassmen on the team.
“There were a few JV players that were freshmen and did get pulled up,” Goncalves said. “Some sophomores did get to play over seniors and juniors that were on the bench.”
Sometimes when underclassmen are played over their older teammates, they are ostracized; however, senior wrestler John Dunning oftentimes beat his upperclassman counterparts his freshman year and said he was not on the receiving end of any backlash.
“I think after a certain point, after you’ve wrestled off so many times, you don’t really start to expect to win,” Dunning said. “A lot of people wrestle just to get in shape, so the person that was trying to beat me, he was a junior, I think accepted it about halfway through. If anything, the upperclassmen kind of thought it was cool that I was able to continuously make varsity every week.”
Many agree that making a varsity team is an accomplishment, especially as an underclassman. This trend has become more prevalent in recent years, according to McDaniel. The question among senior athletes is, is this fair?
“No; [it’s not fair] at all actually,” McNeill said. “I think that freshmen and sophomores, even if they have the skills, should still earn their position and not just get it right off the bat, and that’s exactly what happened.”
Goncalves agreed.
“I don’t [think it’s fair],” Goncalves said. “Like in football, varsity players are usually juniors and seniors. If you were really highly skilled [as an underclassman], that’s the only reason they would pull you up [to varsity], but they still played upperclassmen before underclassmen.”
Although McNeill and Goncalves hold this point of view, not all athletes agree. Senior Breanne DiBernard has played varsity girls’ soccer for two years and thinks that this action is justified.
“I definitely played more on JV,” DiBernard said. “[I have] definitely [lost playing time to underclassmen], but it’s for good reason; it’s not for no reason. There’s not a lot of favoritism really.”
The concept of favoritism is common in high school athletics; however, the impact it has on the athletes differs from sport to sport. Junior Colter Orchard plays varsity football at Northwood and says it does not play much of a role.
“It depends on the team we’re playing and if we’re losing or winning, but usually [the coach] tries to intermingle all the players into the game,” Orchard said.
However, McNeill believes favoritism greatly affected his coaches’ decisions.
“I think there were a lot of favorites,” McNeill said. “[One of the coaches] had really close relationships with a lot of the freshmen and stuff, because he had heard such great things about them, so yeah, I think that plays a huge roll in that.”
According to Goncalves, his coaches favored students from a specific middle school.
“For soccer, yes,” Goncalves said. “They coached them at their middle school, and they would just like them, and if they knew you, they would play you. Also, if their parents talked to the coaches, they would give you playing time because of that.”
Head boys’ varsity soccer coach Bret Pedigo disagrees that favoritism affected his decisions.
“The best players who work the hardest and play good team soccer play the most,” Pedigo said. “The goal is to win games and help players become better players and people. We do that by holding everyone accountable for their effort, mental and physical, and their attitude as team players. There are some matchup realities. Playing someone slower against a fast opponent only sets them up for failure, and we put our players in positions to be successful. To maximize chances of success we want to play our strengths and minimize our weaknesses, but the bottom line is the players playing the best that day play the most regardless of who they are [or] what class they are in. Personal favorites play no part in my decision making.”
McDaniel also gives his perspective as a coach regarding favoritism.
“You can see the pull from a player to a coach for sure,” McDaniel said. “Bottom line, to me it’s not favoritism as much as it is coachability of a kid, meaning I’d much rather put a kid in with a good attitude versus a kid with a bad attitude if they had the same talent. A lot of times, if you equate favorability as coachability, that’s what head coaches want, even at the Division I level.”
Regardless of the reasoning, the desire to play more is the most reiterated view by second-string athletes in the majority of sports.
“I think I should have been out there a lot more,” McNeill said. “I mean, I didn’t mind playing second string, but if you’re not even going to play your second string, there’s no point in coming out to those games.”
Goncalves shares this same sentiment on his position on the soccer team.
“Everyone on the bench of course thought they deserved to play more, and we showed that in practice, but it just didn’t translate onto the main field,” Goncalves said.
This attitude echoes all the way to the girls’ soccer team.
“Of course, I do [think I deserve to play more], but everybody does,” DiBernard said.
– By Chloe Maynard
