Privileges of the CHS Football Team

PRIVILEGES OF THE

FOOTBALL TEAM

HENRY MA

From dance to badminton to football, Cupertino High School (CHS) offers a wide variety of sports for its student body. These sports have become integrated into the lives of students, for both athletes and spectators. However, a problem arises when one sport becomes more favored than the others, causing more funding and privileges to go toward that specific team. The CHS football team has always been held up to this

But if they did that, they did that on their own, absence of approval from the administration.

standard, with many athletes believing that the football team sees more benefits to their sport counterparts.

Football was commonly seen to have more privileges during the normal season, commonly believed to gain more funding and priorities. Currently, during the quarantine season, football has been thought to have more access to locker rooms and the freedom of having their masks off. Even some football players believed this to be a privilege. Said Saaketh Kanduri, “I feel like the football team had it easier with masks because we could wear helmets instead of masks. The only other privilege was access to the locker room but it wasn’t as if we were allowed to stay in there. It was just a place to drop your equipment or put your jerseys and pick them up.” Without understanding the situation from the perspective of a football player, many athletes developed the misconception that the administration was letting certain sports have access to locker rooms. Teams that had access to locker rooms were supposed to use them as storage rooms rather than as a place to hang out or discuss plays. Said James Gilmore, Athletic Director at Cupertino High School, “Locker room spaces are not available for anybody, but there is storage space available for people. So if football has all that equipment, they were able to store their equipment in the locker room, but they weren’t supposed to use the locker room as the locker room. Some specific sports have specific spaces where they’re able to store some stuff, but nobody has an official locker room where they can change and do those things.”

There are restrictions in place that each sport has to follow, and there are no sports that are exempt from these guidelines. Said James Gilmore, “The state came out with specific guidelines for each sport. So each coach had to follow those specific guidelines that were geared toward each specific sport. And they were very specific.”

Football, similar to all the other sports, had to follow these specific guidelines created for them. Football players did not receive any more privileges than other teams from the administration. Said Gilmore, “From an administrative perspective? The answer is emphatically From an administrative perspective? The answer is emphatically no.

no. It’s basically up to the coaches to make sure that [the guidelines are followed]. There probably have been times where [the football team] hung out in the locker room where they shouldn’t have been, it should have been just a storage space. But if they did that, they did that on their own, absence of approval from the administration. So if that happened, it was outside the knowledge of the administration.”