By Irene Feher :
For the past month, athletes have been changing at DPMHS before going to practice.
“Birmingham asked Daniel Pearl to have their student athletes changed when they come to Birmingham. When the students come there late, waiting to go inside the locker room to change, the staff has to ask someone to come over there to open it,” Principal Deb Smith said.
Last year before the new rule, DPMHS athletes gathered at the back of the school and left right away to Birmingham for practice. This year, athletes have to change in their designated rooms, being room 3 for the girls and the multi-purpose room for the boys. The enforced rule gives less trouble to the BCCHS staff but causes athletes to be even later than they already are.
“It’s a pointless, waste of time that could be spent at practice,” said sophomore varsity volleyball player Michal Francisco. “If we changed at Birmingham instead of Daniel Pearl, each individual would be responsible for themselves, instead of all the other athletes.
I’m an athlete myself and I don’t mind this new rule because I don’t really need to use the lockers, intsead we put our bellongings inside a nearby shed or on the side against the fence. Though, I think it’s more convenient having to change at DPMHS because when you arrive at BCCHS, you’re ready to go.
Luckily for other sports like water polo, football and baseball, they don’t need to change at DPMHS. Those sports have their own locker room at BCCHS, which are open most times. Some sports like tennis put their items on the side in plain sight aw well.
“Honestly, this rule doesn’t affect me at all,” said sophomore Maxim Grinfeld, who plays varsity water polo. “Water polo and swimming have their own locker room to change in, instead of using the main lockers most sports use.”
But for other sports, like cross country, waiting at DPMHS then going to BCCHS can be a bit inconvenient.
“We have to go to the locker room to put our things away, since we run we have to ask coach to open the locker room for us while the team is doing warm-ups,” said junior varsity cross country runner Vanessa Barajas. “The runners can also put their things in the bleachers, but that’s dumb because it can get stolen.”
One solution that can fix this time issue is to have the schedule of DPMHS be more like the one at BCCHS. This will make DPMHS 7th period start when BCCHS 6th period starts.
