Is Spaulding Athletic?

In the recent Niche 2020 rankings, Spaulding High School ranked 49th out of 130 schools in New Hampshire for the best high schools for athletes. This is comparatively worse than rival schools such as 4th ranked Exeter and 16th ranked Portsmouth. Even the school down south beat out Spaulding as Dover ranked 42nd. Spaulding’s low ranking leaves the question as to what has made Spaulding to be considered less athletically prominent than our rivals.

Last year Spaulding was home to two Gatorade Players of the Year: Leah Creteau for volleyball and Arie Breakfield for basketball, both of whom have since graduated. Both of those players’ respective teams made playoff runs that season as both were part of the five total playoff teams that belonged to Spaulding in the 2018-19 seasons. Although the only season for the 2019-20 year that has come to completion is the fall season, only the volleyball team that season made a playoff run. And through the winter season only one team sport has a winning record, being the women’s basketball team, which is ranked 14th in the state and 4th in Division II. The loss of many prominent athletes after last year’s seasons have seemed to cause the success at Spaulding to go down, but have still affected Spaulding’s athletic reputation. Not only award winners such as Breakfield and Creteau, but also all state athletes such as Kealian Craig, Keegan Calero, and Jonathan Dube. Calero and Craig were both multisport varsity athletes too. But despite all of this recent success of players, Spaulding has not been able to be considered a school of stand out athletics.

Athletics are a prideful tradition at Spaulding. Even when teams are not winning they are embraced by the entire school and community. Through the fall season, the Spaulding football team was known to have one of the best and largest student sections in the state. This is especially due to a group of student section leaders known as the ‘Skin Boys’. The Skin Boys travel to most sporting events in the fall, including all games for the 2-7 football team regardless of distance. They are always able to get a large student section together no matter the circumstance of whatever team they’re supporting. When asked about what makes the student population have so much support for their teams, student section leader Devlin Bowley said, “The student section has always been great because it gives kids a chance to get out of the house and watch their school compete. School spirit is something Spaulding takes very seriously and they love to support their fellow students regardless of the team’s record.” For Spaulding to be ranked as poorly as it is despite the atmosphere the events provide and how much support the athletics get could be considered ridiculous. According to Niche polls, Spaulding’s top three school traditions were attending various sporting events. To put that into perspective, the fourth ranked Exeter had zero sporting events in their top three school traditions.

Many of the athletic negatives at Spaulding may come from our lack of multi sport athletes. Even with the graduation of several great student athletes, Spaulding still has several great athletes who don’t commit themselves to playing multiple sports. In a poll of 50 student athletes at Spaulding, only seven played a sport all three seasons, and only one of the seven competed in a team sport all three seasons. Three sport varsity athlete Kevin Casey shared his opinion on the lack of students playing multiple sports: “Kids just really have to get out there; we have a lot of great athletes who just don’t give things a shot. It’s high school. Have some fun and school spirit. You never know if you don’t stick your toes in the water.” Not only does Casey compete during all three seasons at the varsity level, he has competed in five total varsity sports in his high school tenure. Not playing sports all three seasons is not necessarily a bad thing, as many kids have other focuses on their primary sport or do not want to risk injury for their primary sport. But many great athletes seem to be uninvolved.

It is the job of the student population to make Spaulding athletics great again. Great coaches have been able to maintain and change the culture of athletics here. Any way the students can help would likely improve the school’s athletic ranking. Those debating to pick up a sport, try it. The devoted athletes have to keep working. And most of all, the student population has to become even more supportive of their sports. Make the student section even rowdier than it already is. Together Spaulding can be considered by the state to be renowned for its athletics given the recognition it well deserves.

Article by Travis Dean