Right now both the LFHS girls lacrosse team and the LFHS boys lacrosse team are ranked top five in the state. For some reason, however, the boys have over 50 student fans whereas the girls are lucky if they get five fans.   

The underrepresentation of fans for girls sports at LFHS is and has been a problem. 

When boys have a game or a big win, they get front page placement and tons of instagram attention, while girls results and wins are often buried. The LFHS Boys Lacrosse Instagram page has 1,610 followers, and the LFHS girls lacrosse account has 669. 

The girls games usually take place before boys games at West Campus. The fence will be empty, but fans start to trickle in once the boys game gets closer, and by the time the game starts it is shoulder to shoulder packed. 

On Saturday 4/25 the LFBLAX had a game directly before LFGLAX. There were over 30 fans at the boys game, all of which had left when the girls stepped on the field right after. The boys played a team from another state, a game that didn’t matter towards rankings at all, whereas the girls were playing a very good team from Illinois that actually mattered towards their rankings, yet no fans were there to support them. 

For girl players this can be very demotivating. Encouragement from fans is meant to improve athletes performance and effort by 7%. If more people showed up to the girls games, success rates would go up, and who doesn’t want their high school to have more victories? 

“I definitely think there’d be more enjoyment of the game, and I do think they would play with more energy if there were fans,” said Boys and Girls Varsity Soccer Coach Rob Perry. 

To make matters worse, our student-run barstool Instagram account only reposts the boys’ sports achievements and athlete shoutouts. There have been no girls sports posted on the account at all, whereas boys are posted around the clock. This just shows how the student body extremely favors boys sports. 

There have been clubs and speakers put in place to try to solve this problem. In February, LFHS had former athlete and now professional coach Ashley Dell come to the school to speak on women in sports. Scout Nation club is also put in place to bring more attention to sports games, including girls. Although these efforts have had impacts, it is still not enough. 

Students should want their girls sports teams to succeed, they should want to watch their friends play, and they should show up to give the teams the little bit of motivation they might need to break a tie. Girls are often more encouraging when it comes to being Scouts fans at LFHS, whereas boys don’t repay the favor and show the same backing. 

“Girls are more supportive of their friends and classmates in school. So the girls soccer players go to the boys games in the fall, but they rarely come to the girls games,” said Perry. 

As high school wraps up this last month for me and many seniors, it is important that we support all students during their last few career games, especially girls who have lacked overall support for the past 4 seasons.