New Rules of Sports Day

Sports day is the most anticipated day of every academic year at Ascend, and every year it changes around, however this year sports day was taken to an even bigger and better scale, which meant a lot more changes came its way. From the inclusion of permanent houses, to preliminary rounds and the much argued upon key-player rule, these new changes brought around many conversations and arguments, which ultimately asked the question, which new changes worked, and which didn’t?

First Change: Separation of Gender in Sports and Key Player Rule

The separation of gender in sports allowed all people to showcase their talent and take part in these sports. Many people were happy with this change as it gave them a platform to show the people what they can do. This was until we were told about the ‘Key Player Rule’, the rule where the teachers decided who was the best player and forbade them to play half of the match. This rule disadvantaged teams that had 1-2 players that actually knew the sport and were guiding their team on the court. Considering that the senior basketball and football teams were short on substitutes due to a lack of players, the key player rule meant that players who were not even comfortable in the sport and didn’t have anyone to guide them, struggled. However it presented a new challenge for those players, to step outside of their comfort zone and play sports they had never played.

In the case of the Red vs Blue senior girls basketball match, the red team had a much stronger basketball team, with their entire starting five playing basketball consistently, whereas the blue team had only one player that consistently played basketball, and she was a junior as well. This meant that while red marked one of their players as a key-player, their team didn’t suffer as they had another four that still knew the game and could still play. However as blue only had one player, this meant their team on the court had no one to guide them when their key player had to be taken off, or give them any sort of advantage. Ishita Ambekar, captain of the Blue Team said this about the rule-- “It definitely had an impact on our girls team, as when we had to sub out our key player as part of the rules and then we essentially had no team.” Ishita went on to say-- “This also led the girls on the pitch to be demotivated, as they were completely inexperienced players, playing a team of girls who were consistently playing and part of a team.” Chhavi Gahlaut, one of the key basketball players within the yellow senior girls category said-- “ I felt it would have been better to have our key players playing throughout, as well as the opposing team having their key players as well. But at the end of the day, it’s just sports day and every team will do what's best for their own, we were just there to have fun and try our best regardless of the outcome.”

So while the key player rule had a lot of mixed opinions on it, arguing whether it did actually benefit the teams, or only favored stronger teams, it was an interesting rule to bring in, that ultimately aimed to create fair play, and allow others to have the opportunity to play and explore sports they had never before.