AHS fans need to pay attention to lacrosse

I cannot believe that I am about to say this.  If it were baseball, soccer, or heck, even softball, this statement would hardly be necessary.  But unfortunately, because lacrosse seems to be a relatively unknown and vastly underappreciated sport, the success of our girls and boys lacrosse (also known as LAX to those newcomers) seems to be going almost unnoticed at our school these days.

For those of you who haven’t been paying attention, both our girls and boys lacrosse teams have clinched the number one seed in the Patriot District Tournament.  This is especially remarkable with our boys team, as they had to beat tough teams like Hayfield, South County, and Lake Braddock, all on the road, in order to clinch the title.  

The boys team has improved from a .500 record last year to only having two losses, by one goal to West Springfield and by three goals to an 8-1 Forest Park team.  And that’s not even considering the success that our boys JV team had in going undefeated this year.

Although the girls team lacks the competition of the boys this year, they’ve been simply dominant.  Their only two losses have come to Bishop O’Connell, a private school, while they’ve romped through their Patriot District schedule.  In fact, their closest game, a two goal win over West Springfield, was probably their worst game all year by the team’s own admission.

But yet, at lacrosse games not only at AHS but throughout the county, people don’t show up.  At home, fewer than 100 fans have been at most home games.  And what about attendance on the road, you may ask.  Well, of the 25-50 people that come to road games, the parents of the lacrosse players are the only consistent audience.    

I understand that AHS is a football school, through and through.  We eat, breathe and sleep football.  But as a school, we need to learn to appreciate other sports and expand our horizons.  Just because we are a football-crazed school, doesn’t mean that we can’t support the amazing success that our lacrosse teams are having this year.

I get that lacrosse is a relatively new sport that doesn’t have the fan base that other, more established sports have. But that’s hardly an excuse to not go to games.  The reality is that if we don’t show respect to our lacrosse teams now by going to their games, what message does that send to the players?

Simply put, we should be embarrassed by our lack of attendance at lacrosse games.  But even that doesn’t fully encompass the problem.  This year, more than any other year, our fans seem to not care about the outcomes of the games.  The lack of caring isn’t just with lacrosse either; it showed in our boys basketball regional quarterfinal game against Madison at home two months ago.  

As I filed into the game, I was actually pleasantly surprised at the attendance. However, at the end of the game, I was genuinely humiliated to say that I was an AHS student.  Why?  

Not because our team lost the game, but because our fan section of well over 200 people produced less noise then a Madison student section of 20 people.  If you looked around the gym, you couldn’t have been surprised either.  People just didn’t seem interested in the outcome of the game.  Conversations ranging from what people were going to do after the game or about their significant others were more frequent then cheering.  Contrast that with going to a game at TC Williams, West Springfield, or even the relatively new South County, where fans actually care about the outcomes of the games.

Essentially, our attendance is sending the message to the teams that are practicing for all hours of the day and  dedicating considerable time and effort to their sport that it doesn’t matter.  Whether it is a boys lacrosse or a football game, it shouldn’t matter; the lack of attendance is hurting these teams in their games.  

If we can generate any type of home atmosphere, our teams will, across the board, perform better.  It is cyclical, too, because if people see the excitement around AHS sports, the team sizes will dramatically increase, therefore helping the team.

Perhaps I’m nostalgic for the so-called old days, the days in which school spirit and pride mattered.  But those days are now gone. If the lack of interest in our lacrosse teams this year says anything, it’s that AHS hasn’t just veered off course in terms of its school spirit; it’s completely lost its way.  

Author Email:
gsy987@hotmail.com