Women’s sports tend to be overlooked, and LFHS is working to flip this narrative.
A committee of female athletes, coaches, and clubs, including Service and Learning Together (SaLT), and Scout Nation, looks to celebrate female sports with National Girls and Women in Sports Day on Wednesday.
Popular boys sports like football, basketball, and lacrosse are heavily attended, so it was deemed necessary to spend time highlighting women.
“We felt like everyone only cared about the football team which was frustrating for the other sports teams who were just as talented. We eventually specifically decided to focus on women’s sports because we believe girls don’t get the recognition they deserve,” senior SaLT member Ryan Rice said.
Since November, Scout Nation and SaLT have been collaborating to bring this idea to life. Scout Nation Sponsor Julie Crouch has been planning ways to “generate attendance” at female sporting events.
“We started to brainstorm ideas, but we were having a really hard time,” Crouch said. “It’s just a culture shift. We have to create a culture that supports everyone.”
Conveniently, Women’s Sports Foundation is having their 50th anniversary making it a perfect time to join in on their efforts. This will become LFHS’s first ever two day celebration focused on praising female athletes.
The festivities will be kicked off on Tuesday by encouraging all students to attend the Varsity Girls Basketball game vs. Stevenson at 7 p.m. in the competition gym. The committee has worked very hard to come up with ways to incentivize attendance at this game.
At 6 p.m. food will be provided to all who attend. Then, upon entrance into the gym, all students will be handed a raffle ticket—just for showing up. A number of raffle tickets will then be selected and called out during halftime for an opportunity to win special prizes like gift cards, items from the booster store, and more.
On Wednesday, the actual National Girls and Women in Sports Day celebration will continue.
Thanks to help from Principal Dr. Erin Lenart, LFHS alum Nadia Rawlinson (class of ‘97), Co-owner and Operating Chairwoman of the WNBA’s Chicago Sky, has graciously agreed to come for an informal ‘fireside chat,’ in the RMA from 1:00-1:40.
Rawlinson attended Stanford for her BA, as well as Harvard Business School for her MBA. Her extensive education has allowed her to become well respected and highly awarded in the business field as she lectures at Harvard and attends various other seminars and operations.
Although this event was created to highlight girls in sports, all students who wish to attend are welcome to sit in for this chat and show support for female athletes.
To conclude the celebration, all female athletes are invited to walk in a clap out from 1:50-2:00 p.m. led by Rawlinson to highlight their athletic achievements. This clapout will start in the front hallway, at the senior star, and end in the competition gym.
Once in the gym, all who walk alongside Rawlinson are going to take a photo. This will show just how many girls actively take part in athletics at LFHS, and deserve to feel the same level of support that is given to male athletes.
There are high aspirations of this celebration changing the future for girls athletics at LFHS, and becoming an annual tradition.
“This is a great way to show our support for the Scouts and girls sports,” senior SaLT member Emily Witte said. “Hopefully this can start a trend of paying more attention to a bunch of different girls sports in the future and getting a larger turnout for all girls games.”
