Barbara Morrison
Editor-in-Chief

This is the fourth and final article in a series on the dynamics of girls’ sports teams. The first three articles are Girls’ sports teams experience divisions, Team spirit of team splits, and Team divisions: how it begins.

Amid the great successes of girls’ sports at Westford Academy, there is a less healthy and productive side to the world of sports, particularly, girls’ sports. The dynamics among players is an issue and stumbling block for many teams- the question is what players and coaches plan to do to fix these problems.

Varsity Cheerleading Coach, Josh Vadala, made clear that he believes that dealing with divisions and friction is the first and most important step.

“If you sweep it under the rug it’s going to erupt at some point,” said Vadala, “Openly discuss things- if you are having issues deal with them so you can move forward.”

Vadala said that his personal coaching strategy and his advice to other coaches is to be honest about the problems that are happening in order to solve them. As far as poor dynamics on girls’ teams as a larger issue, Vadala says that he does not expect it to resolve itself any time soon.

“I do not see an end to this,” said Vadala, “I think that it’s bigger than people realize. It’s a bigger issue of the social scene within schools.”

He followed up by saying that instead of focusing on the larger issue, “the onus needs to be on both the team and the coaches. [Divisions on individual teams] have to be talked through,” Vadala said.

He also stressed that a large emphasis on team building was the best way to bring a team together, and that success and team dynamics go hand in hand.

Senior and Varsity Volleyball player, Lorraine Harhen, agreed with Vadala about the vastness of the problem saying, “I think it [friction] is just an understood thing in girls’ sports.” She went on to say that it needs to be addressed and would take a lot of pressure off of athletes if steps were taken to fix it.

The former Girls’ Junior Varsity Volleyball Coach and current Girls’ Varsity Basketball Coach, Russ Coward, said that he knows how he wants to begin attacking the issues within girls’ sports on his own teams.

“I know how I’m going to try to fix it,” said Coward, “The first thing I’m going to do is have practices with all three [Varsity, Junior Varsity, and Freshman] teams on the weekends. We’re going to do a silly workout video, because if they are feeling foolish, at least they are doing it together.”

He said that fostering interconnectedness among all of the players in each sport, regardless of which level they played out, would lessen frictions in coming years when JV players would move up to Varsity and have to get acquainted with a new team.

Coward, a new dad, said that when thinking of the friction and unhealthy dynamics of girls’ sports teams as a larger problem, he is wary, but hopes things will improve for his daughter.

Coward also connected these problems to the status of women’s sports in general.

“This has the potential to disappear in 30 years. If girls’ sports are taken as seriously as boys’ sports, they will care less about the social aspect,” said Coward.

Senior Rachel Socolow, who plays Varsity Field Hockey, Varsity Hockey, and Varsity Lacrosse, said that she agrees with Coward on his prediction.

Looking forward to the time when dynamics are not such a prominent issue, Socolow said, “girls’ sports have a ways to go, but there’s been a lot of progress already.”

Right now, it seems, every TV set in America is playing one NCAA play-off game or another. People in every state, have laid their bets as to who will win it all- even President Obama has filled out his bracket.

Yet every discussion revolves around the men’s teams- so much so that most people do not deem it necessary to clarify which team they are speaking of, it is simply assumed that the men’s teams are the only ones worth talking about.

In such a climate, it would not be surprising if Coward was right to say that it is the lack of respect and seriousness given to women’s sports that make team dynamics so troublesome.

While women’s sports slowly but surely gain more and more respect, though, it is important that coaches and players stay vigilant in being honest about the problems that do exist, trying to avoid the causes of friction, and dealing with divisions, openly and earnestly, when they arise.