Spotlight on Sabers Football?

By Ashley Price

Photos by Courtney Dininny

For years, football has been an integral part of Susky’s school spirit. Though our team does not have a winning record, the boys try hard and receive much support from their loyal fans. Each year, the football booster club pays to rent lights for the field for one home game. This has proven to be a very successful event.

Each Friday night game under the lights has drawn in more than triple the amount of fans than those that attend Saturday games. This is positive in many ways as it not only raises money for the booster club through admissions and profits from the food stand, but it also helps to raise the team’s moral. Players see all of the support they have by the number of people in the stands. This realization helps to boost, not only their moral, but their effort to win as well.

The cost of lights has also been questionable. Many feel that this expense would be a waste of money, as the team is not our most successful athletic group. However, after years of renting these lights, simply buying them would be beneficial. When renting lights, the company that the booster club is renting from must be paid to deliver the lights as well as set them up. From there, the janitorial staff must then maintain those lights until they are transported back to the company which costs money as well. If the school was to simply invest in the lights, they would pay for themselves within a few years and the hassle of having to transport them would be eliminated. Varsity football would not be the only sports team that would benefit from permanent lights on the field. All of the pee-wee football teams would be able to have night games. The Track and Field team would be able to finish meets that may run longer than expected rather than forfeiting the unfinished events. Local soccer teams, as well as the cheerleading squads and color guard could also have practices and games on the field without the stress of coordinating the game schedule with daylight. Moreover, while permanent lights for the football field would be somewhat of an expense for the school, they would boost school spirit and support for our team, save money n the long run, and benefit a plethora of other sports as well.