Throughout elementary school, parents, teachers and administrators promote equality among all students. Who knew that concept would be trampled by high school sports? Who knew football would trump every other sport on campus? Who knew almost every other activity would be demeaned by lack of funding? If anyone was not aware of this prior to attending high school, they were certainly up to date by the end of football season.

One of the most thought provoking aspects of being involved in an activity on campus is being blatantly ignored by administration. Whether it is a club or a sport, lack of school funding follows almost everyone. For this reason various clubs are forced to go through the painstaking process of fundraising. Some sports fund raise using Hudl, some may sell candy, band sells apples, chorus even sold mattresses last year, but I have yet to see a football player carrying a box of chocolates or conducting a car wash in hopes of maintaining a half decent budget. Every other activity on campus has no choice but to fund raise, since the only alternative is to cease to exist. The football team’s lack of monetary burden comes across as nothing other than favoritism. 

The year-round bias that is flagrantly demonstrated is not only noticeable in funding, but also in transportation. In the 2017-2018 school year Brantley’s former principal cut transportation funding for every sport besides football. While this regulatory rule allowed teams to take a bus to out of county games, it hung many athletes out to dry, especially those without their own automobiles. This forced student-athletes to carpool with teammates (which left many parents uncomfortable, as it was a student driver), drive themselves or ride with their parents. All these options leave open the possibility of being late, or even missing a game. Of course the football team did not have to deal with such strife, as they were provided with buses for every single one of their games. Even the band, cheerleaders and Sparklers were administered transportation for games, where their contribution has no effect on the final score. However, the overall outcome of the season has little to do with who is allotted special privileges, as the football team’s win to loss ratio is hardly spectacular, in fact it is quite sub-par.

While the football games do have the highest attendance and thus bring in the most profit, high schools should nourish the idea of impartiality. At the very least they should do a better job faking appreciation for other sports or clubs on campus. The fact of the matter is that football is not the only activity on campus, so we should not treat it as such.