The 2019-20 school year was the only time in decades that Escalante High School didn’t have a basketball team. Since, I’ve seen that missing just one year of the sport has not only had a ripple effect still affecting the team today, but has also negatively impacted all the youth behind them.
Just 10 years prior to our skipped year, Escalante was coming off of a three out of four year state championship winning streak.
According to UHSAA, the school must have a JV schedule for one season before they can have a varsity schedule again which is what Escalante High School did in 2020-21. In that year, they started the program back up with only a C team schedule. A one-year loss of a team means a two-year loss of varsity competition. And it’s not just two years of varsity play that is lost but it’s two years of all the kids who watch the games that they don’t get to see.
I grew up watching Chad Cottam and Dallen Shakespeare play. They grew up watching their older brothers play. The success that Escalante High School had between 2006-2009 started at least 10 years before that. These older brothers set the example for the youth in the community. Had there not been a team in the late 1990s, then the state championships would not have come later. Even missing one year of a varsity team will have a negative effect for a decade.
Our schools along the Byway are small, our resources are few and our programs are slim. A year or two setback is greatly compounded because of this. If a large school loses a program it’s a reduction of about 1% out of their countless clubs, sports and programs. When one of our small schools loses a program, it’s at a minimum a 10% reduction in programs for our kids to participate in. The greatest loss however isn’t for the kids themselves that don’t get to play that year but it is the youth that watch that lose out.
Personally, I want strong competitive programs at the high school for selfish reasons: so my own kids can grow up watching the sport, learning and being in a competitive environment. That competitive spirit that comes from a community pulling together to cheer for their favorite team is palpable and seeps into the very character of our youth. They learn to be competitive, hard-working and a team player which serves them the rest of their lives. Don’t let a one-year setback affect kids for the next decade, because I promise you, it does.
– by Kevin Griffin
Feature image caption: The Escalante boys basketball team started back up as a JV team in 2020-2021 after it skipped a season the year before. This is that year’s team.
Read about Bryce Valley’s girls basketball team, which faced this problem, in Why Play Girls Basketball? by Jade Roundy.