Athletes who participate in a coed environment often experience a variety of pros and cons. Tennis and ultimate frisbee are no strangers to the coed team dynamic, while others, namely cross country, are newer to the practice.
Paul Maskill ’24, a captain on the cross country team this past season, said, “This is the second year of coed. I liked it. I think it was really cool working with girl captains.” He continued, “It’s pretty inclusive, especially with no cut. With making it coed everyone was able to find a place.”
“‘It’s pretty inclusive, especially with no cut. With making it coed everyone was able to find a place.’”
However, bringing the two together brought some difficulty to the cross country team. “This year, we have about 40 guys and 60 girls,” Maskill said. “Coaching is a little more strained under the big team and you get less individual training, which is the only downside.”
The tennis team handles being coed a bit differently. Melody Robertson ’24, a captain of the tennis team, has found that in previous seasons there was a divide between the boys and girls on the team. “We did have a little bit of a divide, I felt we had boys hanging out more with the boys, [and] the girls hanging out with the girls.” She added, “Some people did mingle and talk and whatnot. But I feel like there’s definitely some groups that just stayed separate the whole time.”
As the season starts, Robertson and her co-captains plan to engage in team bonding activities in an attempt to unify the team.
The ultimate frisbee team in past years has experienced struggles and victories of their own in the field of coed sports. “There’s been problems with not throwing to girls in the past,” said Odessa Stambaugh ’25, a player on the coed ultimate team. She believes that the problem can be resolved by being able to trust one’s teammates, “A lot of that comes from trust and knowing who you’re throwing to.” Stambaugh said, “[You need to] trust the person you’re playing with to be able to play well.”
On the plus side, Stambaugh admires the unique environment that comes from a coed team, “You get to meet people and play with a different team than you usually would. It’s a different competitive environment when you’re playing on a mixed team.”
Many Roosevelt athletes observe that coed sports help to diminish certain expectations that women are not as athletically inclined.
“It makes sure that everyone knows everyone’s putting in 110% no matter what. Time doesn’t signify how hard you’re working. Or how much you deserve the medals,” Maskill said.
Robertson also finds that coed helps to end those stereotypes, “I feel like just being able to sometimes have matches against the boys and then coming up on top, just for fun, that’s cool to prove our skill set.”
