Respect athletes and their initiative

Let's face it, some people of our community and outside of our community are under the impression that we embody a tradition of bad athletics. We are often viewed as enlightened and intellectual students, but we are hardly given recognition for being athletes. Despite the fact that we have a hard time beating other colleges in football or various other sports, people have to realize that we do excel and thrive in athletics. For instance, our Women's Lacrosse team won the NCAC championship this week and our Ultimate Frisbee Team is competing in Nationals at the end of the month. In addition, our women's tennis team finished second in the conference. These three teams are showing to people with a lack of faith in our athletics that we can thrive in our classes as well as in the playing fields.

Sports are often frowned upon by people on campus and somehow find a way to in the butt of many jokes. We should realize that we have a great number of students on campus who are committed to their respective sports teams and deserve support, whether they win or lose. We shouldn't just wait until Women's Lacrosse moves up to finals to show them our enthusiasm, but instead, we should give them support throughout their entire season.

Oberlin has talented athletes on all our sports teams. Because certain individual athletes excel more than others at Oberlin, we find it difficult to beat teams that simply have a greater number of talented athletes. There is not a strong emphasis on sports at Oberlin like many other colleges and universities in our region, yet it doesn't mean that our community should dismiss sports altogether. Athletes on campus strive to do well in their teams, and we should begin to show more support and respect to their initiatives and hard work.