What if instead of signing up for a conventional sport, such as volleyball or soccer, you could try something new and skateboard for P.E. credit? Last year I skated to school, and upon arrival put my skateboard under the couch in the office. Until now, mine was the only board there. Now, three or four boards are found under the couch on any given day. On October 11, in fact, there were three boards under the couch, and two more on top of the lockers. We should take advantage of this rising interest in skateboarding within the Sequoyah community and strive to make skateboarding not just a viable option for P.E. credit, but also an officially recognized Sequoyah sport.
At Sequoyah, if you want to play a sport outside of school and get P.E. credit, you simply fill out a form and have your coach sign it. This poses a problem for skateboarding, however, because if you skateboard independently, you probably do not have a coach. This makes the logistics of skateboarding for P.E. credit somewhat difficult, though still worth pursuing. When eleventh grader Bram Belonsky-Stern and I first asked Marc Alongi, the High School Director, if skateboarding could be a sport, he responded that without hiring someone to supervise, Sequoyah could not legally endorse the sport. However, he said that if a few people got organized and went skating on a few days a week, it could count as our P.E. credit. Last year it was only the two of us fighting to make skateboarding an official part of Sequoyah’s sport offerings, but I believe there are new skaters at the school that could help make this happen.
I asked some of the skaters at Sequoyah why they thought officially recognizing skating as a Sequoyah sport would be valuable to our community. Lucian Cole-McLaughlin, a junior, stated: “Skateboarding is a way of bringing people together. When you do something that you need to try over and over again with someone you aren’t close with, you will be amazed at how much fun you can have.” This highlights the camaraderie that can be found in skateboarding, which is something Sequoyah values deeply. Bram Belonsky-Stern, also a junior, observed that skateboarding would be a positive addition to the community because: “Skateboarding is a non-competitive sport about self perseverance and supporting one’s peers. It also allows for self expression.” These are both values that Sequoyah holds dear, which in turn suggests that skateboarding really is in the best interests of Sequoyah’s high school community.
