Dear Cougar Press,

My name is Alyssa Garo. I am a sophomore at VHS and I’ve been playing beach volleyball for two seasons since I was a freshman. My level in playing as of right now is a strong hold on varsity four with my freshman partner Ginevra Scaglia. Our beach volleyball program has been doing very well the past two seasons as a new CIF sport. 

Our programs have expanded so much and with that, we deserve our own sand courts at our home [at] VHS. Having sand courts at VHS is so important to many of our players. It’s such a convenience to have courts in our school, especially for our underclassmen players who don’t drive. Not only will it be more convenient to have a court on VHS, [but] it will actually help out programs by bringing in support and profit. The funding for sports is so unfair and it should be spread out and made to be fair to all sports. 

Having beach volleyball courts on VHS is very valuable to our players. We’ve had an amazing season and no one really knows about it or supports us. Having beach volleyball courts on [campus] will bring in the student body and more people to come to support our program. The courts we are using right now are at San Pedro Beach in Pierpoint and we lost three courts due to the weather we’ve been having recently. Parking is terrible there. Our players and coaches have a hard time finding spots to park. Most of the time we end up parking really far from the beach and having to walk so far just to get to practice every day. Don’t even get me started [about] game days. It is nearly impossible to park. If we just had courts at our home, it would be so much easier.

We could bring in so much profit if we had games on VHS. For example, during [the] indoor volleyball season my mom Anne Garo, a fellow teacher in [the VUSD] ran the snack bar along with others and it did so well and all of that money went right into our VHS volleyball program to get new balls, nets, etc. Beach volleyball is in no way connected to our indoor program. So we do not have access to [the] money we made off of the snack bar and the donations we got during that season. 

So we are on our own and all of our players are working hard to get donations on Snap Raise so we can afford these courts. Our beach programs run off of donations. As players have to buy all of our own gear including jerseys. Football gets all types of new gear every year. On another note for indoor volleyball, we wear the same jerseys for years until we get only one new set for only one team. I think that the funding for sports needs to be more fair. A lot of our sports here are unfunded.

As an underclassman [who] doesn’t drive, I struggle every day to find a ride to practice and my games. A lot of our players who don’t drive struggle to get rides every day. Especially on game days [when] we have to drive ourselves to these games at early times between 12:30 [to] 2:30 [p.m.]. Most of our players’ parents work a normal [nine-to-five] job and they can’t take off work early to see our games along with going out of their way to take us to these games. I know that my parents can’t take me because of their jobs where they absolutely can’t leave. [It] is definitely a bummer sometimes they miss my games but we need to make it easier on our parents so having the courts at VHS will be so much better for the students, parents, and coaches. Plus gas is expensive for the players who drive so if we have courts here it will save them money. 

I think that the VHS beach volleyball program should be able to have beach volleyball courts on our campus. The fact that we don’t is unfair and inconvenient. Because we don’t have courts on our campus, we don’t get any support, promotion, or profit. We really need the support of the administration, teachers, and students to make this happen.