Less funding, fewer updates

The Athletic Booster Club and the Peninsula coaching and administration work together to meet the needs of sports athletes. In recent years, certain facilities such as the Jackie Prindle pool and the team room in the gym. The softball team received a new batting cage and bullpen last year and the gym and weight room are in the process of being updated.

“It was long overdue. What our athletes had was substandard,” Principal Mitzi Cress said.

With limited funding, many teams’ equipment still awaits such updates. For example, the track has not received a complete upgrade since its construction in 2001.Where most tracks have a bouncy layer between the paint and the concrete layer, the school track is just painted concrete. This style of track surface is believed  to be the cause of shin splints, a pain or ache along the tibia and even stress fractures, cracks in the tibia.

“The track is extremely hard and painful to run on. With a new track, I think athletes won’t have as many injuries,” sophomore track athlete Lauren Yen said.

Cress wishes to improve as much as possible, to help make our school a better environment for the students.

“It has to be something that will enhance our school, our academic or athletic community, and then what will benefit the most amount of kids,” Cress said.

The Athletic Booster Club helps with fundraising, maintenance and updating of facilities. The co-presidents of ABC, Paige and Arch Asawa, have decided to focus more on sports that have not received as much attention from ABC in the past two years. They weigh heavily upon what is updated on campus and work to be fair to all sport and students. By communicating with coaches and other ABC members, the presidents help decide on what should be updated.

“When my husband and I became presidents last year, we did facility assessments with the administration and we looked at what sports received what support from the Athletic Booster Club over the past two years,” Paige said.

For future plans, the Athletic Booster Club hopes to update the stereo systems with proper funding, in the gym. They also hope to get a new track along with a new turf, once the funds are raised.

“The purpose of the Athletic Booster Club is to support the school and the athletics at the school and the student athletes,” Paige said.