Irregular Sports

Most schools have regular sports like soccer, girls volleyball, basketball, track, etc., but how many schools have you seen with irregular sports like wrestling, skiing, swimming, rugby, and gymnastics? Not that many.

In most schools sports like these wouldn’t be very popular, meaning they would waste lots of money on expensive sports that no one would do. These sports are considered hard and unpopular.

I sent out a google form asking students which sport they would do if they were offered, and the highest vote was none, gymnastics, and wrestling (tied). Each sport has from 10 to 13 votes. All of these sports require more equipment than the sports offered at SHS, so coaches and the school board would have to pay a lot more money than they do now if these sports got added.

All these sports would be hard to have at SHS. Having a wrestling team unless we co-op, and there’s not enough room or interest. Having a gymnastics team considering the team would need an experienced coach considering how hard the sport is, and the amount of equipment needed. a rugby team, rugby is a different sport not usually played in America. A skiing team would need a big enough place to ski and all the equipment. SHS does co-opt a swimming team, but there’s not a lot of interest.

These sports would each need a certain amount of  students wanting to play the sports and that aren’t in a sport during each season. These sports are normally in spring fall or winter.

The objective of wrestling is to put your opponent on his back and pin him. Pining your opponent is putting them on their back or a part or both shoulders touching the mat for two seconds. if no one is pinned, the opponent with the most points wins. There are many rules involved in wrestling specifically with penalties and scoring points. There are four main moves a wrestler should know: take-down, escape, reversal, and near fall. Wrestlers should avoid getting penalties as it affects their score.

The rules of gymnastics are understanding the type of scoring, wearing appropriate attire, rules while spotting, respecting teammates/opponents, no jewelry, be confident, avoid deductions, stay in bounds, and respect judges.

The rules of rugby are you need to know the field and know and be comfortable with the shape of the ball. There’s a maximum of

15 players and 7 substitutes. Simple attire, shirt shorts and boots with minimal padding allowed. Two 40 minute halves with a maximum of a 10 minute half time. There is one referee and two judges, when rules are broken keep playing and the judges keep count of it.

The rules of swimming are the four official strokes, front stoke, back stroke, breaststroke, and butterfly. races go from 25 meters to hundreds of meters, no walking or touching the floors, can not switch strokes.

The rules of skiing are the event formats, techniques, mandatory skiing equipment, starting, track switching, scoring, penalty’s, disqualification, and Olympic qualification.

While there are many things that need to happen for SHS to add any of these sports, perhaps at some point you’ll find yourself attending one of them and seeing the green and white in action. If so, you’ll know a lot of work and learning went into that contest.