photo: kbear65/ BY-NC-SA

A couple of weeks ago a few of my friends and I decided to try out for the softball team. At the first day of try-outs the coaches seemed very rude—they didn’t introduce themselves or ask us for our names—they just ordered us to “run!” I wouldn’t say I did terribly but I was definitely not going to make varsity. That was cool though because I was content with being on junior varsity.
On the other hand, one of my friends was an excellent player. She caught all of the fly-balls they sent our way with ease, they even made her play second base. She hardly let anything get past her, I was in awe at how good she was-but then again, she has played softball before. At least if I didn’t make the team I’d be happy that she did.
As the try-outs continued, one of the coaches actually asked my friend and me for our names’ numerous times and even gave us compliments and tips. I thought we were for sure going to make it onto J.V., and my two other friends thought that too. When the day for posting the first cuts came I was confident that our names’ were going to be on the list. Wrong! My friends and I along with a few others who, in my mind, were good all got cut from the softball team. Looking at that list they all had something in common; they were mostly Caucasian girls. Out of 24 girls that tried out why did only two African Americans make the team? When I met up with my other friends they had the same thing to say, all the black people got cut which made us think about the rest of the major sports teams at our school: football-all African American, soccer-all Latino, lacrosse-all Caucasian, baseball-all Caucasian, and basketball-all black. Now when I say “all” I don’t mean literally the whole team, but if you look at the demographics of what each team is comprised of, or if you asked anyone at my high school which ethnicity makes up which team those are most likely the answers they’d give you.
Why aren’t the teams at my school more diverse? I personally think that the lack of diversity on our athletic teams discourages a lot of people from trying out for sports teams. I know I was very intimidated being one of the only 6 other African American people trying out for the softball team, and now that we all got cut I feel even more discouraged. Not saying that race is the main reason why some of my friends and me didn’t make the team, but gosh, can we create more of a balance amongst the different races so that no one will feel like they don’t belong, or that it’s normal for a particular sport to be made up of a certain race. We have to make a change and reach out to people of all backgrounds to diversify our team sports in our schools.