Image provided by Mercury News.
Have you ever been to a high school sporting event and worried about your safety? There have been recent instances where fights and other acts of violence have happened for a variety of reasons. Multiple reports concerned about the brawls during football games in the East Bay have surfaced in the mainstream media. Washington High School student John Tala was interviewed about the safety of football games. “I think that there are some issues with how safe the football games are,” he states. “One of the biggest issues is that the gate where Eggers drive is located is not always locked. This could lead to people coming into games without having to pay.” When asked if this affects his desire to go to games he says, “No, I don’t think this will prevent me from going to any games, but it does make me worry that anybody could come into the stadium to not even watch the game.” One of the biggest downsides of the lack of safety in these events is that it can make the students watching start worrying about who enters the stadium.
Lack of safety in these sporting events can lead to a lot of chaos, including audience members in the crowd fighting for no reason. Having people get in the stadium without paying can be part of the reason why this is happening at games. This concerning news has parents very worried about safety at football games as well. Senior Joseph Plaskett was asked if he had seen any fights at football games. “I haven’t witnessed any fights here at Washington High School,” he said. “But I have heard about other schools having fights at their football games here in Fremont.” He adds on, “The closest thing here at Washington to any of that is really just arguments between opposing teams during football games. Not a lot of chaos really happens here which is great.” The good news is that here at Washington none of these brawls happen. But it is concerning that there have been these fights happening at other schools here locally.
A question that surfaces in the article is why all these fights are happening. Some issues that can cause these fights is lack of campus officers on campus during these football games, which has parents very worried about their child’s safety when attending these games. As stated in the article, many districts have removed campus officers during the games. A simple solution to this problem would be having more campus officers present when the games are being played. Fewer of these fights would mean fewer parents complaining about their child’s safety. Another reason for these fights happening can be that students supporting opposite teams trash talk each other. Personal things can be said which can lead to frustration and they take out their frustration by fighting. Students may be really passionate about their team and when they lose they may become frustrated. This can lead them to taking their frustration out by fighting students that trash talk them.
Armaan is a senior at Washington High School and has lived in Fremont his entire life. This is Armaan’s first year at the paper and he is very excited to be here. Some interests that Armaan has in journalism are writing about sports and talking about what people like to do in their free time. Some hobbies I do in my free time are play basketball and watch football. My future plans are to go to college, get a degree, and find a job that pays well.