The scary side of sports

Aine McCann ’24

On January 2, just two days into 2023, the sports world was faced with a reckoning. During a Monday Night Football game against the Cincinnati Bengals, Bufalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin completed a routine tackle, stood up, and then collapsed, unre sponsive. In a matter of moments, medical staf were on the feld administering treat ment. Several long, somber minutes passed. Broadcasters cut back and forth between studio and feld, unsure of what to show and say in response to the tragedy happening in front of them. Players on both teams were kneeling on the ground, visibly distraught. Thanks to the rapid response of various medical personnel and CPR deliv ered by Bills trainer Denny Kellington, Hamlin was revived and taken to a nearby hospital, where he remained in critical condition for several days. Now discharged and reunited with his teammates, Hamlin is set to make a full recovery. Whether he will return to the sport remains to be seen, though most agree that what happened during the Bills-Bengals game is bigger than football. While on life support and throughout his recovery, Hamlin received millions of messages from teammates, ath letes, celebrities, fans, and those who had been shaken by his injury. Many also engaged in debate surrounding Hamlin’s injury. Some called out the violent nature of football, while others pointed out that Hamlin’s injury was pure misfortune and could have happened in any sport. Many agreed that athletes are treated too much like commodities, as after Hamlin was removed from the feld, both teams, still in shock, were initially given fve minutes to warm up and return to play. Others praised the quick response of the Bills’ medical staf and noted the importance of having well-trained medical personnel at athletics competitions.

To get a handle on how Hamlin’s injury has afected our LM athletics community, various coaches and athletes were interviewed to see if the event has changed the way they view health and safety in sports at all, and how LM could potentially learn from it moving forward.

LM’s starting quarterback Mekhai Smith ’24 acknowledged that although Hamlin’s injury was “distressing and heartbreaking on a personal level,” it “has not changed [his] perspective on the sport of football,” in any way. Smith simply views the event as a stroke of unbelievably bad luck—not as a symptom of any sort of concerning systemic issue. “Damar Hamlin’s left chest was struck at the exact instant of vulnerability needed to cause his cardiac arrest, according to cardiologists. Terrible timing.” said Smith. Boys’ soccer coach Nicolas Severini said his takeaway from the event was “be prepared…be aware…and expect the unexpected.” Severini felt that Hamlin’s cardiac arrest “solidifed the philosophy of health and safety as a frst.” LM’s Athletic Director, Jason Stroup, expressed the importance of knowing where to fnd help when necessary. “I think that it is important for both athletes and coaches to know how to get in contact with our athletic trainers, nurses, or other emergency medical staf in the case of an emergency. It is also very important for both athletes and coaches to know where the AEDs are located both outside and inside the building.” Boys’ basketball coach and physical education teacher Gregg Downer had a similar perspective, stating that the event did little to change his current philosophy on health and safety in sports. However, Hamlin’s injury did emphasize Downer’s current philosophy.

“It shows you have to be trained and ready to assist at all times.”

He added that LM’s physical education department is prepared for such incidents: “LMPE (Lower Merion Physical Education), for many years, has been teaching and training in CPR procedures-the hope is you can help in an emergency.” For LM, Hamlin’s injury seems to have emphasized an existing philosophy: preparedness is everything. While risk cannot be eliminated from athletics, we can control how we respond to injuries. It is essential to know where to fnd trainers, AEDs, and other type of support. Medically trained personnel should be present at all athletic competitions and practices: the more, the better. Each CPR-certifed coach or trainer is a potential lifesaver. “Get trained and always be ready to save a life,” says Downer, adding that “Sadly, emergencies and danger can strike at any time or age.”

Power paddlers

For the past two years, the LM Swim and Dive team has faced shortened and modifed seasons due due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the 2020-2021 season, the team wasn’t able to hold any spirit dinners and only competed in fve meets. Last year, there was an initial return to normalcy, but due to the Omicron variant, spirit dinners were canceled after the frst few weeks of the season. Capacity for spectators at the meets was also down to 25%.

This year however, the cumbersome COVID-19 restrictions have fnally been entirely lifted, resulting in a more close-knit community. According to Addie Lawrence ’24, “practices have become more organized and spirit dinners are more consistent. This year the team feels more like a family.” Coaches Mikell Nigro and Sally Wolfe agree that this has been an important diference this year: “Our goal for this year was to build a strong community. We have been focusing on consistency and communication.”

This goal has been refected in the team’s practice routine. According to Wolfe, the team has “been focusing on breath control, fast turns, and sprints.” Quick dives are crucial for winning any race, especially relay events. Wolfe voiced that “with the addition of two additional starting blocks, we have also been able to spend more time working on our starts in order to prepare for our weekly swim meets.”

With 4-2 records, both the girls’ and boys’ teams are performing extremely well this year. The girls’ team was defeated by Garnet Valley, but they pulled out an unprecedented win over Radnor by just one

Running with the wind

Josh Greenberg ’24

With a promising spring season ahead, the indoor track team looks to improve while also enjoying some competition. Leading the Aces is new head coach Kevin London, who returned to the program after a three year absence, and head distance coach Neal Berman. Coaches London and Berman run the program hand-in-hand, designing a rigorous training schedule to ensure success for athletes in both the winter and spring seasons.

Within the frst several months of the indoor track season, the sprinters and jumpers have gotten of to a fabulous start. After the frst three meets, four athletes—Nicklaus Jeudy ’24, Demari Dean ’23, Ruben Barrett ’23, and Dayandre Miller ’23—have qualifed for the Meet of Champions: a selective meet that takes place at Lehigh University. These strong results in the frst few meets is largely due to the training regiment coach London has set forth. Sprinters run six days each week, mixing in fve, arduous workouts per cycle. Afterwards, the sprinters perform drills every practice, and cut them short twice a week to lift. By completing these post-run exercises, sprinters aim to improve form and increase their power to ultimately run faster. Hopefully the Aces’ hard work at practice will help to propel more of their sprinters and jumpers into the Meet of Champions, and for those who are truly gifted, the even more selective state meet.

As for Coach Berman’s distance runners, they have taken a more gradual approach into the spring season. The distance runners held of on competing in meets for a large portion of the indoor track season, facing of for the frst time on January 21. Still, they have seen plenty of impressive results, leading Sajan Blum ’23 to boast “the boys ran point. Lawrence recalls the Radnor meet as the most exciting moment of the season. “We were neck and neck with the Radnor team, swimming to either win or lose the meet. We all swam four laps in under a minute, tying with the Radnor relay down to a hundredth of a second.” Had the relay gotten second place, LM would have lost the meet. some fast times early in the season.” Despite the varying approaches to competing in meets, Berman’s distance runners have been participating in similarly fashioned practices to the sprinters. What’s diferent about the distance team schedule is they only have three workouts for every six practices they have per week cycle, and they also incorporate yoga into their postrunning activities. According to Nathan Grunfeld ’24, “the workout schedule is certainly very strenuous, but I trust that Coach Neal’s workout planning will pay of for the rest of the year.”

The team’s success has allowed the girls’ team to climb up to an impressive tie for third place in this season’s team standings, out of a total of twelve teams in the Central League. The boys are currently in fourth place, as they won over Garnet Valley but could not beat Radnor.

The stellar performance of the swim and dive team would not be possible without the hard work and dedication of each swimmer. More than half of the LM swimmers and divers have qualifed for the Central League Championships. Additionally, several swimmers have already qualifed for District I Championships: Felix Kohler ’25, Jordy Mendelbaum ’23, Ethan Murray ’24, Omar Niazy ’23, Matthew Thomas ’23, Alexa Conner ’23, Anna Dymek ’25, Laney Harris ’24, Katie Potts-Drew ’26, and Iris Xiong ’26. Impressively, Conner has qualifed for Districts in every event she has competed in. The girls have also qualifed for Districts in every relay: the 200 Medley relay, 200 Freestyle relay, and 400 Freestyle relay.

The swim team has had a very successful season thus far, and will likely only continue to improve as they approach the championship meets later on.

Overall, the indoor track season has been a success, at least up to this point. Athletes have been working hard in practices, and the results are visible during competition. Although the indoor track team features many star athletes, the team’s full potential for the spring is yet to be reached. Jeudy, the captain of the sprinters, expressed that, “we have a good, hard working group of guys, and we hope to add season.”

Rebounding to success

Nathan Grunfeld ’24 Sports Editor

The girls varsity basketball team has had a season of ups and downs. Despite facing challenges and injuries along the way, the Aces have shown signifcant improvement on the court since last season. A shift in the program’s culture and consistently strong performances by players have given rise to improvement and moments to remember.

Fourth year head coach Erin Laney had a specifc goal in mind at the beginning of the season: improve. She stated that the team’s “expectations were to perform better and be more competitive than we were last year.” Coming of a three and seventeen record from the previous season, the Aces have already improved and reached this goal as they currently hold a fve and ffteen record. Shooting guard Lindsay Gillston ’24 is proud of the team’s successes this year, believing that the season has gone “really well so far” and that they have “improved so much since last year.”

One key to the squad’s newfound success is how the environment and atmosphere surrounding the team has changed in recent years. Laney recalls that when she “inherited this program, players would miss practice and games regularly.” Throughout her tenure as the head coach, Laney has worked hard to eliminate this culture of carelessness and replaced it with one full of dedication and discipline. The importance of this culture shift can’t be overstated. As Laney explained, “The reality of girls’ basketball is that the more aggressive team usually wins – regardless of talent (to a degree).” Thus, an increased drive to win is often all that’s needed to see massive improvement.

Living on the ice

Gideon Wolf ’24 Sports Editor

Following multiple years consisting of disappointing results, the LM Liberty, the girl’s ice hockey team, has fnally managed to see some encouraging signs of success in recent competition. Over the course of the previous 2021-2022 season, the Liberty only managed a lone victory. But thanks to a new coaching staf and an influx of promising talent, that total was bumped up to three victories during the current campaign, with a couple of games still left to go.

As soon as Head Coach Lauren Patterson and the new coaching staf frst took over in June, they noticed an undeniably huge problem: they only had ten players and no goaltender. The previous year, this lack of depth made it incredibly difcult for the Liberty to succeed, resulting in them winning just one game all year. Starting her frst year on the job, Patterson viewed this in a more positive way, explaining, “I came into the season thinking we could only improve from there.” This year, the program has made an incredible leap in the number of participants, and now almost thirty players are skating and practicing with the team, including twelve who had never played hockey before.

Although the expansion of the roster was an encouraging sign, if the Liberty were going to succeed, they needed to get these new recruits as much experience as possible, and fast. In order to accomplish this, the new coaching staf started the JV/Independent Team, nearly doubling the amount of games played by the program as a whole. Patterson believes that this increase of on-ice experience was invaluable for the program, and “a huge factor in how much our team has improved in one season.” Heading into the season, Maya Polss ’23 admitted that she had “never touched a hockey stick before.” But by the end of the season, she was leading the JV/Independent Team, and even netted a game-winning goal against Central League rival Conestoga. The goal, which lifted the Liberty over Conestoga by a score of 5-4, sent the bench into a frenzy, with Patterson even claiming, “I’ve never heard a bench so loud even when I was playing college or profesional hockey,” and that the moment “felt like it was out of a TV show or movie.”

While the development of a JV program was a big step forward for the future of the Liberty, the Varsity team was also experiencing some immediate success of its own. The Liberty defeated Radnor twice and even West Chester East, a victory which according to alternate captain Julia Dubnof ’23 “would have never happened” in previous years. Even in games in which the Liberty were not victorious, Patterson saw evidence of impressive development. After implementing a new defensive system, the Liberty held Kingsway to just two goals in what Patterson described as “one of the greatest defensive games I’ve ever seen from any team I’ve coached.” Although they were unable to come away with a win, their sturdy defense stifed the opposition for much of the game. Then, against West Chester Rustin, a team chock-full of NCAA level talent, the Liberty had another outstanding performance on every level. According to Patterson, “Goaltending was stellar. Defense was solid and producing ofense, and forwards put on the most aggressive forecheck causing so many quality chances.” If it were not for an impressive display from the opposing goaltender, Patterson believes that the Liberty could have scored four goals against this high level opponent.

After a 43-42 loss to Chichester last season, the Aces took revenge with a monstrous 59-11 victory over the Eagles.

Another significant cause has to be attribued to the players themselves. The team consists of many seniors, a couple juniors, two diferent sophomores, and one freshman. With a blend of returning talent and new faces, the team has worked to build chemistry and to help the younger players adjust to the competitiveness of high school athletics. They’ve accomplished this by practicing hard against one another, but also enjoying each other’s company on and of the court. Through a team trip to Orlando, the players bonded and built stronger connections. Gilston comments how the team has “created a fun and welcoming environment” for its members. The squad is led by the previous year’s team MVP and captain Eva Taberski ’23, who will be continuing her basketball career at Mount Holyoke College next year. The power forward describes that through her leadership, she tries to “keep morale high during [the team’s] lower points of the season and to try to create a close knit community.” Unfortunately, with any competitive sport comes the risk of injury. In December, starting point guard Alexa Braslow ’26 sufered an ankle injury, which would linger and eventually end her season in mid-January. This was a devastating loss as Braslow acted as a foor marshal for the team, helping to organize her teammates across the court. Laney admits, “It’s been a tough season after losing Braslow.” Despite this setback, back-up point guard Morgan Debreaux ’23 stepped up to try to fll the hole, and has competed with confdence and played some of her best basketball to date. Unquestionably, the highlight of the season was the game against archrival Harriton. The Aces came out strong with an early lead, but the gap was closed by a third quarter Harriton run. The two teams battled it out for the remainder of the game, the diference never surpassing one or two scores. With the team down with less than a minute left, Alex Dore ’24 hit two free throws to tie it up at 51 apiece. After a Harriton miss, Braslow went coast-to-coast, securing a place at the line. Thanks to her experience in the soccer season, the signifcance of the moment didn’t evade her. After missing the frst free throw, she stepped up and sank the second, winning the game. Although she’s proud of herself for keeping her composure, she’s “even more proud of the team for playing so hard and so well together to put us in the position to win.”

The girls basketball program has experienced a turbulent season. They’ve been plagued by injury and lost games they should have won. However, they’ve improved as a team and seen success as a result. As time goes on, the program’s shift in culture will only continue to improve and strengthen the team. Overall, the future looks bright for the Aces.

Across the entirety of the program, Patterson noted massive improvement in all facets of play. Although much of this improvement is due to the rise in experience and players, much of the Liberty’s success can be attributed to the dedication of Patterson. As Polss explained, “I can tell you for sure that our coaches genuinely care about us. They have done so much for us individually and as a team, giving us amazing opportunities and we are having one of our best seasons.” Now, with a signifcantly bigger program, including plenty of experienced middle schoolers ready to play at the highschool level, along with the new JV/ Independent Team to help the newcomers develop into stars, it is clear that the new coaching staf has built a program headed in the right direction.

Girls indoor outdoor track

Sarah France ’24 Sports Editor

Despite the title, the girl’s indoor track team has been spending some quality time with Jack Frost as the temperatures continue to drop. While others stay inside enjoying the amenities of a heating system, the girl’s track team has been outside battling the cold regardless of the weather. The sprinters spend practice perfecting their form, distance builds their endurance, and the throwers and jumpers improve their strength and technique. Sprinter Emily Zhang ’24 explains, “We always make sure to do form drills before our workouts and layer up.”

The winter track season is consisted of seven DVGTCA league meets hosted by complexes such as Alvernia and Lehigh University. Every Friday night, the runners choose to give up their free time to compete in track meets that have races going of as late as 10 p.m., causing buses to arrive back at the school between 11 and 12 p.m. It’s not the most glamorous way to spend a Friday night, but the team likes to have fun with it. Runners Aine McCan ’24 and Faith Law ’24 describe that, “We love our Wawa trips and competing with friends in relays.”

As the season approaches its end in February, the team is more than ready to showcase the strength and speed they’ve been building. On February 5 and 6, the team will compete in New York, running at two back to back high profle meets featuring some great competition. Distance runner Lela Miller ’24 states, “It’s really exciting that I get to run on a banked track for the frst time. The Armory is a super famous track and I think it will be really cool to run on the same track as so many legendary runners.” While winter track is a fun sport, one of its main purposes is to prepare athletes for the upcoming spring track season. Coach Dennis Hagan shares, “We build strength in the weight room and endurance with hills and road workouts so that by spring we are in peak performance.” The team is super excited to fnish out the season with some fast marks, but even more so to carry on their top notch ftness into the spring season.

The Hope Classic is an annual basketball game held in the Kobe Bryant Gymnasium that raises money and awareness for the Angelman Syndrome Foundation & Foundation for Angelman Syndrome Therapeutics. The tradition was started at LM by math teacher and assistant basketball coach Kevin Grugan, whose daughter Hope lives with Angelman Syndrome. This year, on January 26, the Aces beat Haverford with an astounding fnal score of 70 to 51. Before the game began, activities were available for younger kids, and t-shirts were being sold in the lower atrium; all profts were donated to the Angelman Syndrome Foundation. In addition to the t-shirt sale, student council members collected donations in the gymnasium before, during, and after the game.

The team looks forward to the event every year as, according to Justin Mebane ’24, “The Hope Classic…represents something that’s bigger than basketball. The game presents an opportunity for us as a team to spread awareness for a notable cause. Also, given the personal connection we have as a