Year after year after year, the football team has had priority over the turf over every other sports team NA has to offer. They conduct practice every day from 3-5 pm during the fall season. If there happens to be a conflict in the schedule, and someone has to practice on the grass field provided, not once has football given up its turf time to practice on the grass. Not once. However, this is not how it should be; every sports team should have equal rights to the turf, because they all have equal needs for it. Right? The football team should not have priority over the turf, because all varsity teams, girls and boys, are equal.

The turf should be equally available to all varsity sports teams, no matter the gender. The sports teams here have a very competitive edge, and with that comes many earned championship titles. Of the teams that use the turf, in the past ten years, field hockey has the most championships under its belt with six WPIAL (Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League) titles, nine WPIAL metals, and nine time section champs. Football earned only three WPIAL titles, were six time section champs, and won two state championships (McClure). The football team is no better than any other team the school has to offer. The fact also stands that every sport puts just as much time in as football does outside and during the season. Field hockey holds conditioning six days a week throughout the entire summer. Football practices over the entire summer as well. Also, every sport holds three days of tryouts, or for football, “evaluation days” since no one gets cut, and each holds two-a-days, sometimes three-a-days, all throughout preseason. All of NA’s sports teams work year round to be the best they can be. Lastly, yet most blatantly, is Title IX. “Title IX is a comprehensive federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program or activity” (Overview). Law dictates that all federally funded activities, in this case sports, prohibits sexual discrimination. Just the fact that football, a primarily male sport, obtains the turf over sports such as girls soccer or field hockey, a primarily female sport, could possibly be a coincidence; however, it is against the law to conduct unjust or prejudicial treatment to a male sports team over the female sports teams at school. Every team is equal, meaning each should have equal opportunities to take advantage of the turf.

On the other hand, many people will argue that since football is the largest, most popular sport with the most draw, it pulls in the most revenue, so it deserves the time it wants on the turf field. Yes, the money football brings in is put to good use, benefitting all the athletes who use the field; however, is that really the message the school should be sending to the students? School’s main goal is education, and what the school is teaching through the football teams privileges is that money is all that matters; whoever has the most money is who prospers in the end. Academics must come first. The first thing taught while playing school sports is that an athlete at this school is a scholar athlete. That includes maintaining certain grades just to play on the team. Sports are a privilege, not a right, that must be earned. All students who earned the right to play a sport should have equal opportunities to utilize the turf provided--it is not about the money.

Every sports team wants to succeed and being provided with the proper equipment, such as turf, will help them on the pathway to success. Football has had priority over the turf for years now, but that is not how it should be. Despite the money football draws in, sports are not about the money, and the school should not be condoning that; sports are about the solely the game, no matter which game it is, or how much money it brings in.  All varsity sports at NASH are equal, meaning nobody should have first pick over the turf.