At Woodstock, there are only a few sports that are year-round for girls, whereas the rest are neglected. Priyansha Agarwal, Class of 2020, said, “Unless you play basketball or football, you aren’t really playing a sport.”
To add to this, the enrichment coordinator, Mrs Nazneen Nagarwalla, said, “There are no professional coaches for some of these sports and most of them are very casual affairs.” However, the students taking part in these sports would disagree.
Even though there is a lot of determination and dedication, the school doesn’t give any acknowledgment to girls who want to pursue a sport other than the ones popular at Woodstock. Sudhiti Barjatya, Class of 2020, said, “Sports such as girls Badminton and Squash are not given importance and all the courts and practice times are taken by sports like basketball.”
According to Mr. Ajay Mark, the Head of the Sports Department, the sports seasons are usually dominated by the year-round sports such as basketball and football, and so, there is not much focus on the sports that some girls want to explore and this is exactly what has been happening.
Last year, some girls of Class of 2020 were keen on making a girl’s cricket team but were rejected. Mrs. Nagarwalla said, “There weren’t enough people who signed up for girls cricket.” Agarwal said, “Girls really want to play squash and badminton but think that there aren’t any opportunities to pursue the sports they are good at.”
Other than that, girls also wanted to create a squash team that could hold a possibility of being year round but were rejected, again. According to Mrs. Nagarwalla, it was because there isn’t enough space in the squash court for a team to be trained but ironically, there is a boys squash team, that is year round, and practices there every Monday and Wednesday.
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