When a student makes a sport’s team, they are excited to improve and play with their teammates. However, for New Providence High School freshmen students, this is not always the case. Due to the no-cut policy on most of the freshmen teams, there are numerous students that go without playing time. It’s time for this policy to come to an end. 

New Providence High School has over fifteen sports programs offered to their students, and most freshmen sports teams have a no cut policy. Girls soccer, girls volleyball, and both boys and girls basketball all allow any player who wishes to join their freshman teams. 

When students join a sports team, their goal is to have fun, but also improve their individual skills. On a large team such as these ones, it is nearly impossible to improve individually if the only coach has to focus on at least fifteen players at one time.  For some sports, fifteen is a good number. However, for sports such as basketball and volleyball where there are only five to six players on the court at each time, putting over fifteen people on a team creates more problems than it solves. 

How are players supposed to improve if their coach is never able to give them personal feedback? Players won’t know what they’re doing wrong, and coaches aren’t able to help them. This sets them up poorly for JV and varsity in the future, since their skill level won’t have improved over the years. 

The girls freshman basketball team this winter season has sixteen players, and freshmen weren’t required to come to tryouts. For a sport that has five players on the court at once, this is unacceptable. Many have complained, and it makes sense. Those who don’t start or play much in their games say that it’s unfair, and those who do say that there are just too many girls on the team. 

There was a similar situation with the girls volleyball team in the fall season. With seventeen players and only six on the court at once, there were too many girls and not enough playing time for all of them. 

Players who have been playing for years are stuck with playing with those who have never played, which annoys both players. While the one who has never played before may be on the team, they don’t get enough playing time and complain. The player that gets playing time is annoyed that they have to practice and play with someone who has little to no experience. 

This creates an uncomfortable environment and situation for everyone. The solution is a cut policy for freshmen sports teams. If New Providence High School cut from their freshmen teams, more students and parents would be happy. While the players that get cut may be upset, being on the team just wastes their time if they sit on the bench. The players that make the team can get personalized coaching to improve, and work to eventually make varsity. 

A change needs to be made now. Students should be enjoying their high school sports, not complaining about them. Unless cuts are done for freshman teams, the players on the team will always be unhappy. The majority would benefit from this, and it would overall create a better sports environment for the players. The students’ and players’ needs are the most important, and what they need is a cut system for their freshmen teams.