When students came to MSMS at the start of the 2023-2024 school year, they found many of their coaches and club sponsors missing. Despite the lack of these leaders, many clubs, teams and organizations are still thriving, which leads me to believe sponsors and coaches should not have to be a requirement for student clubs.
Goen’s soccer team is one of the teams left without a coach. Its coach, Hunt Holdiness, moved to Nashville to help out with his cousin’s T-shirt business at the end of last school year. However, this didn’t slow down the team. Team captains Ella Jones, Laykin Dixon and Sabrina Sims organized tryouts and planned practices, all without much help from administration.
Recently, the school hired a new coach. Jones said she thinks a coach is necessary for games to go smoothly since the captains cannot coach while playing, even though practices have gone well so far.
The team is not alone in this aspect; at the end of the 2022-2023 school year, Speech and Debate team coach Lori Pierce declined to take up her role again. Team captains tried unsuccessfully to find a different teacher to fill the job.
Regardless, the team still presented at the annual Club Fair at New Student Orientation and planned for the next school year. It was only a few weeks before school started when the team was told Starkville High School Speech and Debate Team coach Sonya Harvey would be the new coach and teacher of the MSMS Speech and Debate class.
Because of her split role and busy schedule, Harvey is only available to help the team one hour a week. Due to the limited time for practice, the co-presidents and co-captains are teaching juniors how to debate, both during the class period and outside of class.
Clearly, this worked. At last month’s John C. Stennis Novice Invitational tournament, the team dominated the Lincoln-Douglas one-on-one debate event, coming home with the champion, one semifinalist and two quarterfinalists.
Debate team Co-President Ean Choi said students with leadership qualities and potential were able to take on the coaching role successfully.
“For debate, I think the only reason we have the need for [a coach] is for registration purposes,” Choi said.
MSMS is a school that aims to attract and cultivate young leaders from Mississippi, so for each club and team, there are probably multiple students who can — and are eager to — take up the responsibilities of leading and organizing clubs.
MSMS is a school that aims to attract and cultivate young leaders from Mississippi, so for each club and team, there are probably multiple students who can — and are eager to — take up the responsibilities of leading and organizing clubs.
For many clubs, this has already happened. In most clubs, the sponsor is just there to supervise. For some, including Volleyball Club, the sponsor is never there, mostly because members meet at 9 p.m.
However, not all clubs and teams are made the same. Similar to the Goen’s soccer team’s situation, cross-country team coach Grossie Thomas moved to Texas. Because of this departure, team captains stepped up, organized practices and competed in three cross-country meets.
Cross-country co-captain Gavin Weinstein said he has advocated for a new coach to administration.
“It’s not that I don’t want to [coach] anymore. I think it’s just I wasn’t prepared for that time commitment. At this point, it’s a little late to hire a coach, [but] if we could find one, I would love one,” Weinstein said. “I worked [coaching responsibilities] into my schedule, but there was a lot of stress at the beginning of the year where I didn’t know how I was going to have time to do all that comes in coaching.”
I can see where Weinstein comes from. To prepare the new members of the debate team for their first tournament, I had to make sacrifices to my personal and academic life. I can say from experience it is not fun to organize and prepare several people — all with unique scheduling conflicts — for a competition on your own.
It is clear some clubs and teams benefit from having a sponsor or a coach. The sponsor can bring their passion to the club and be an integral part of it, in clubs including Speech and Debate. However, mandating all clubs to have a sponsor makes teachers and other administrators pick and choose which clubs to sponsor. This makes it harder to form new clubs, as students need to find someone to sponsor them, and perhaps their favorite teacher or the one most suited to it is already overbooked. Sponsoring clubs also leaves teachers with busier schedules, compounding the amount of work they already have.
MSMS is designed to bring the best and brightest students from across Mississippi and allow them to express their interests when they couldn’t pursue them in their home schools. However, by requiring all clubs to have a sponsor, we are obstructing students from fully expressing themselves and exploring their interests.
MSMS is designed to bring the best and brightest students from across Mississippi and allow them to express their interests when they couldn’t pursue them in their home schools. However, by requiring all clubs to have a sponsor, we are obstructing students from fully expressing themselves and exploring their interests.
Editor’s Note: Jacob Neal is a member of the Speech and Debate team and serves as debate captain.
Heath Stevens • Oct 5, 2023 at 4:24 pm
Clubs also need sponsors if they plan on raising money or going on events; some adult/employee has to complete the paperwork. I would say that even when I was a student here, most clubs/orgs were student-ran and student-centered with adults stepping in as needed.