OpinionWilde Lake Needs Only One Sport

ball will be placed in the center of the field by a referee.

For sports without balls, the athletes cannot score in the traditional sense but instead focus on stopping others from scoring. Wrestlers may pin opponents, swimmers can take away balls, and fencers can duel people.

For sports with specialty equipment like baseball bats and tennis rackets, each athlete in their respective sport starts with that piece of equipment. These must be ditched when the player gains a ball from a new sport.

Games last 8-18 hours, depending on whether the game went into overtime, how many player swaps were needed during play, or if, at any point in time, the torch stops burning, which activates phase two of the sport.

BY LAUREN KELLY

At Wilde Lake High School, sports clubs are incredibly popular. Those who don’t play sports have friends who do. Sports are nearly the fabric of the social life at Wilde Lake.

However, despite what sports contribute, they can create a financial burden for the school. With all the equipment, transportation, and other miscellaneous expenses, the price can skyrocket.

While contemplating the issue, I figured: what would happen if every sport was combined?

Think about it. It would be much more cost and time efficient to only have one sport for students to participate in. This is why Wilde Lake needs a crossockeyball team.

The rules are simple. Each athlete is assigned to a starting sport, in whatever formation their coach deems fit.

Eighteen balls (i.e., footballs, soccer balls, pucks, birdies) are in play at any time, but what kind of ball varies throughout the game. The ball determines the sport. For example, if you are a soccer player and you catch a football, your role changes into a football player until you release it.

Once a ball is scored, it gets swapped for a ball from the original sport of the player. If that soccer player gets a touchdown, a soccer future seems “clearer” now that he knows how to run a business. He says that what keeps him going in times of turmoil is setting goals.

During phase two, anyone in the bleachers may enter the field and attempt to score for either team. Phase two does not end until all the observers have been shooed off the field and the torch has been relit. The game cannot end until phase two is over.

One of the key strengths of this sport is its flexibility. If at any point the school decides it wants to offer another sport, it is simple to incorporate a new layer into the field. For example, the recent addition of the chess tables offering poker shows that it only takes a small change to make the sport open to more people.

Crosshockeyball is a fresh take on sports. Let us not be afraid to try something new. Wilde Lake could lead a movement against unnecessary sports.

His biggest goal now? A proper salon.

“By the end of the school year, hopefully we’ll have a bigger space and we won’t have to wash hair in the dirty sinks,” said The Barber. “For now, though, the bathrooms will do. I’ll never forget where we started.”