Bullying and the Not-So-Blindside of Sport - Taylor Swanson

     In today's society, it is unfortunately no secret that an array of bullying and cyber-bullying occurs to a significant amount of people--those of all ages, genders, races, and sexual orientations. Furthermore, this horrendous experience is certainly not absent in the world of sport and physical culture. In fact, for most young people who do endure a form of bullying, it can often be found at the root of this individual's ability, knowledge, and appearance while playing a sport. While pondering over my own past of participating in various physical activities, one experience stands out to me above all others. During my junior year of high school--and my third year of playing varsity volleyball--my team endure an immense amount of bullying for classmates and peers that were suppose to be nothing but supportive to us.
     In this specific year of  my high school volleyball career, our varsity volleyball team started out the season with a bang. Our team had energy, excitement, and immense teamwork that ultimately set us out to have a great--and winning--season. The pure adrenaline and excitement was even more prevalent when our small-town high school entire the famous Homecoming Week. A week that was supposed to be filled with fun games, school spirit, and certainly not any real homework. For our small high school, one of the most exciting parts of homecoming week was Senior Skits: a Friday morning that allowed all seniors to participate in various self-prepared skits. These skits were meant to look back upon good memories of the senior class and provide some humor to the students, faculty, and staff of Prophetstown High School. However, when a large group of senior football players put on a skit mocking the varsity volleyball team, it's players, and their abilities, the fun of senior skits was quickly wiped away. These boys even went as far as wearing colored wigs and specific numbered jersey to accurately describe the player they meant to mock. Despite our impressive start to the season, these boys displayed our team in a horrible light, and ultimately took all of the power and momentum we had gained from our impressive wins away from us. Each little dig throughout the skit chipped away at every bit of confidence and excitement our varsity team had. And, why? Because our varsity volleyball team was having a winning season, and the football team wasn't? Overall, it was a horrific bullying act that was meant to degrade the team's confidence in the team as a whole, and in individual players. Fortunately, despite this horrible stunt, our team stuck together and pulled out an amazing season of high school varsity volleyball.

Here is a picture of our varsity volleyball team, which unfortunately, also underwent an immense amount of criticism and bullying within this Senior Skit from our fellow classmates and peers.