When people ask me about my opinion, I often pretend I don’t have any. I dance around the question or repeat other people’s opinions to disguise my own. When the idea of having me write a column was brought to my attention, I was honestly taken aback. My first thought was, why would anyone want to read what I have to say? But when I thought about it more throughout the day I began to think, why wouldn’t someone want to read what I have to say?
As a woman in the sports field of journalism, I find myself convinced that my opinions are invalid more often than not. The second-guessing of myself is something many women experience, sometimes without even realizing it. Women often believe that they aren’t good enough or aren’t smart enough, and therefore their intelligence and ideas are unwanted or unnecessary. This scale of “good enough” or “smart enough” is typically measured in comparison to men. Where on that scale, men are “enough” and women are “not enough.” There are too many women who continue to keep quiet and fall victim to the comparison of a man.
My whole life I have been a “woman in sports.” I have tried all recreational sports ranging from hockey to dance. In my high school years, I finally found my main focus in cross country and soccer, where I have been a varsity athlete for multiple years on both teams. I am proud of being a “woman in sports,” but sometimes I wish the title of “woman” was dropped. When the media talks about professional male athletes they don’t address them as “male athletes,” they are just “athletes” But time and time again, the media fails to refer to women as just “athletes”, including the “woman” or “female” to remind them that they could never compare to their male counterparts.
The progress of women will never be seen as the same as the progress of a man. As a runner I am fully aware that I will never run faster than my male counterparts; that’s just biology. What is unacceptable is how the athletic accomplishments of women will never be considered incredible if a man is already doing it.
Despite gender barriers towards female athletes, the female athletes at ETHS didn’t let that stop them from being successful. From 2023 to 2024, 64 female athletes were IHSA State Qualifiers, whether they qualified with their team or individually. This is in comparison to 29 qualifying male athletes. Additionally, three female teams qualified for their State Finals, including girls water polo, girls bowling and field hockey. Only one male team qualified for state that school year and it was the boys gymnastics team.
The support towards female athletes from ETHS is lacking not only in their recognition as exceptional athletes but also in the resources given to players. Women’s sports programs tend to have less access to resources which is extremely obvious in sports at ETHS.
The girls field hockey team, an IHSA State Qualifying team from 2023, has struggled due to the lack of resources for their team, specifically field space. Field hockey is a sport that needs to use synthetic turf fields. Playing with a small ball on bumpy grass is extremely difficult. Still, the team rarely gets priority over Lazier and has to practice at Robert Crown every day.
“Our whole program would go to Robert Crown every day, and as an underclassman I would have to walk there after school or my mom would leave work early to drive me,” senior field hockey captain Addie Dodzik said. “It was kind of hard because we started practices late every day, and it was frustrating because obviously our team doesn’t get priority over Lazier because we don’t get a lot of viewership. We would get the worst times for games and practices because it all revolved around soccer and football.”
It doesn’t make sense to make kids walk to Robert Crown every day. Robert Crown charges $130 per hour for each field, but it is unclear how much ETHS pays. Still, it doesn’t make sense to pay Robert Crown when the field isn’t accessible to all students. It would make much more sense and would benefit all sports if we built another turf field.
Another turf field would make sharing space between teams more equitable. It would not only benefit athletes, though. It would also benefit the school, as it could rent out the turf space to other Evanston club teams. The administration would be making a profit in making a turf field at ETHS rather than sending away all of the money to Robert Crown.
Another team that would especially benefit from a turf field is the flag football team, which qualified for State this year and shows a resource discrepancy between football and flag football at our school. The boys football team gets to consistently practice on Lazier every day after school. The girl’s team, on the other hand, doesn’t even have a field. They practice on the baseball field. Some people may argue that because the football team is bigger they get more space, but that’s not the argument here. It isn’t about how much space the teams have, it’s about the quality of the space. There is absolutely no reason the flag football team should have to practice on a grass baseball field. We need to give them an actual field, particularly a turf field. The incredible part of this example is that the flag football team actually went to state, whereas the football team was eliminated from playoff contention. It only makes sense for the better team to have the proper resources.
Athletic Director Chris Livatino says he has been advocating for a turf field since 2018. In the past 10 years sports such as field hockey and flag football have been added to the athletic program at Evanston but there has been nothing done to accommodate for this increase in female athlete participation.
“I have been advocating for synthetic turf on our softball and baseball field since 2018, not only because it would dramatically increase the playability for those two spring sports, but for the opportunity for all of our fall field sports to practice and compete on the safest surface possible,” Livatino stated.
Another team that has a resource discrepancy with their male counterparts is the swimming and water polo team. Most people don’t realize this, but the boys’ swimming locker room is much nicer than the girls’ locker room, containing a swimsuit dryer, something the girl’s locker room lacks.
Senior girls swimming captain and multiple-year state qualifier Cameron Corbett commented, “It’s disappointing that they don’t give us equal resources.”
While a swimsuit dryer might seem superfluous and not important to discuss, it is important for female swimmers to feel equal to their male counterparts. Even the smallest of resource disparities show female athletes that they aren’t cared for.
“We simply don’t have enough money to get everything done as it currently stands,” said Livatino.
As girls and women, these inequities in sports are blatantly obvious to us. Yet, nobody else seems to care or even notice. Female sports teams at ETHS have proven time and time again that they are respectable athletes and it’s about time we start giving them the resources they need. It is time to start encouraging our female athletes to pursue careers in athletics and share their opinions because if not, we are stuck in the scary reality of a man’s world.
The way to start balancing these inequities would be for the administration to build another turf field, and make the swimming locker rooms have equal resources. This would make ETHS sports more equitable and would have positive impacts on female athletic programs. The cost of a new turf field would cost approximately $2 million. Since the ETHS foundation was able to raise the money to support the renovation of A252 into Alumni Hall, we female athletes ask that the ETHS foundation find a way to raise money to fund the building of a new turf field. The mission of ETHS Foundation is to “Guarantee Access to Excellence to All Students” which we hope they can channel to promote gender equity in sports.
