People at Westminster are crazy about sports. In fact, we place so much importance on sports that an entire website was created for Upper School sports news and results. But academic teams don’t share in the recognition, and I think it needs to change.
This lack of respect shows up subtly but consistently, and in many different ways.
The Middle School hosts end-of-season assemblies to congratulate its sports teams. However, the academic team members this year got a whole three minutes during the last Monday Morning Meeting. This kind of favoritism fosters a culture where sports seem cool and popular, while academic teams get labeled as “nerdy” and “weird.”
On our school website, the Student Life page lists the academic teams, but not what they do. Additionally, the page is not updated, so a club called “You Be the Chemist” is listed as one of the academic teams even though it doesn’t exist anymore.
In a faculty document listing all the teams and clubs in the Middle School, the teachers who lead the academic teams are called “advisors” rather than “coaches.” This perception, whether intentional or not, creates the notion that the academic teams are just clubs, rather than actual teams where people put a lot of effort.
This perception likewise makes its way into this particular publication, Westminster Paw Prints. Until this semester, we hadn’t written a single article about an academic team since December 7, 2023, and the next most recent article was published on November 10, 2022. This highlights how little importance and interest many journalists give to the academic teams.
Some of these problems, like updating the Student Life page, are easy fixes. Others, like a lack of interest in academic competitions, are harder to change, and for reasons like smaller venues, less shared enthusiasm, and less familiarity.
I think one common reason academic teams have less visibility is that the events are smaller. A lot of sports games are held here on campus and in dedicated stadiums, while academic tournaments are held in borrowed rooms in a different school or college. Additionally, Model UN conferences will not allow non-participants into sessions.
Furthermore, because programs such as AQT have multiple teams in a tournament, matches happen at the same time, meaning that viewership is split between teams and that it’s harder to foster enthusiasm. For sports teams, matches usually take much longer than academic teams’ matches, and when the school has multiple teams, their matches usually don’t overlap.
A lack of familiarity with academic competition definitely plays a big role in disinterest. Sports such as football, baseball, and basketball are relatively easy to understand and widely followed, so the familiarity creates a willingness to watch matches. However, with academic teams, rounds are quieter, more intellectual, and less flashy. The factor of “fun” doesn’t apply to academic games for people who are used to watching sports, so interest isn’t generated easily.
But these reasons are not excuses to dismiss the importance of academic teams.
I currently have to tell my friends the format of AQT competitions just to let them know something interesting that happened. No one has to do that for a sports game, and I feel that I shouldn’t have to either. It gets a bit tiring after some time.
We can increase visibility by including academic teams in the end-of-season assemblies. We can circulate information about academic teams so that members don’t have to feel like they have to constantly explain format or rules.
The question isn’t whether we can fix this. It’s whether we will.