Behind the Clipboard: Priority Varsity?

I wrestle, and when we practice, we have to get out the mats, lay them down and then pick them up again so the cheerleaders can practice. Sometimes we don’t even get in the gym at all because the girls basketball JV is using it. That doesn’t seem fair — we’re varsity, and they’re not, so shouldn’t we always get to practice? If there’s not enough gym space, like when it rains, shouldn’t the varsity teams always get priority? — A.J., Pleasanton

I can hear your granddad agreeing in the background, “When I was in school, we always got the gym — and for as long as we wanted.”

Of course, back then there was no Title IX and girls athletics consisted of one day per year in some schools. Yes, you read that right. One day. All year. That was the total for girls sports.

What does that have to do with 2017? Just this — if sports have an educational value that schools should support, then that value applies just as much to girls as it does to boys.

And also, it’s not like anyone is turning pro off your wrestling team (most likely there are no future Olympians on the mat), or off the boys basketball team, or even the girls basketball team. Why does that matter? Because when you get down to it, there’s not any reason why a varsity team should be more important than a JV team. Just because the varsity players are better athletes, should that mean they get more practice time? You could argue that the varsity teams need less practice because the players are more advanced.

OK, that’s not happening, but think about why high schools have sports teams. Yes, they contribute to school spirit, but mostly they’re about giving kids an opportunity to learn what it means to be on a team, to work hard for a goal, to accept roles and to grow as a person through the inevitable ups and downs of a season.

If you look at it that way, there’s really no difference between the varsity athlete and the freshman athlete, since the value of the process is the same. There’s no doubt the varsity athletes are better, and it’s likely they’ve put in more time over the years, but the freshmen and sophomores are less likely to be motivated to do the same if they are always getting bumped out of the gym by the older kids.

So I will pick on my own sport, and I mean no offense, but the reality is girls junior varsity basketball is a long way from the game we see on TV. For girls especially, a freshman with talent will be on varsity, so often the JV team is made up of young women who just want to see what high school basketball is like — and most of them discover it’s harder than they thought. The result is games are often not pretty to watch, and when older boys watch them play, they are far from impressed.

But skill level is not the point. The boys varsity basketball team would likely get crushed by the top teams in Northern California, so does that mean they shouldn’t get practice time? And if your wrestling team has a bad year, should you give up the gym more often?

Bottom line: It’s not about skill, or varsity vs. junior varsity. It’s about the value of high school sports, and that value applies equally to every student who wants to put on a uniform and go out and try to do his or her best.

  Clay Kallam has been an assistant athletic director and coached numerous sports at a handful of high schools throughout the Bay Area. To submit a question for Behind the Clipboard, email him at clayk@fullcourt.com.