Members of Lisgar Collegiate’s rugby team practise after school recently. The rugby team hosted an independent practice until their teacher representative continued coaching despite teacher protests.
Matthew Neville and the rest of the boys’ junior soccer team will have to wait another year for their chance to bring home glory to Lisgar Collegiate Institute.
After a miracle run to the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations championships last season, Neville and his teammates will be sitting on the sidelines this fall.
“This year we had probably an even stronger team with hopes of making it to provincials . . . and we couldn’t even enter a team,” says Neville, 17.
Lisgar failed to register all but one sports team for the fall semester.
The ongoing dispute between teachers unions and the Ontario government has seen the cancellation of many extracurricular clubs and sports due to lack of staff volunteers.
This has left a strong feeling of discontent among the school’s athletes – especially the senior ones who were hoping to represent the school one last time.
"My last chance at playing sevens rugby at Lisgar is gone,” says Grade 12 student Cameron Fischer. “Practices are still running however, and when the coach can’t come students step up and run practices for themselves.”
But when it comes to larger events, the lack of staff volunteers is too big an obstacle to overcome. That’s why the inaugural junior girls basketball Lisgar Collegiate Classic, which was supposed to be held in September, was cancelled.
Only the golf team will be in full swing for Lisgar this fall with the future of winter sports still uncertain.
In a Sept. 21 letter to parents and guardians, principal David McMahon said many schools in the region are having problems with the number of staff volunteers to supervise extracurricular clubs and sports activities.
However, he assured parents the physical education department will be running some training sessions and scrimmages for players that would have been on fall teams.
Sports teams play a large part in students’ lives. Not just for the camaraderie they feel with their teammates or the sense of belonging to something, but also for college and university applications.
Extracurricular activities can be the difference between getting accepted or rejected by a university, which is a concern for 17-year-old senior Sarah Seward-Langdon.
“I miss it. I’m also worried about my university applications,” says Seward-Langdon, who played badminton and soccer for Lisgar.
“It always looks better on university applications to be involved in more. Although, I don’t only do these things for the sake of my university applications, they are things that would have been good additions.”
While there will be a chance to for teams to continue to practice together, the situation is still unclear. John Ruff, head of physical education at Lisgar, declined comment.
High school sports will be missing a lot of teams from a lot of schools this fall.
Discussions for volunteers to allow for winter and spring competitions are ongoing but as of yet nothing has been decided.
The whistle has blown for fall athletes at Lisgar but there still may be hope for the rest of the year.