Hounds must play at Brownsburg, which conflicts with football game that night

By Daniyal Habib
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Students who flip to the week of Sept. 8 in their Pathways will notice that Friday is marked with the word “Homecoming.” What they may not notice is that the Homecoming football game at 7:30 p.m. is not the only Carmel sporting event that day. The freshman men’s soccer team will travel to Brownsburg at 5:30 that same afternoon, which will cause the players to miss most, if not all, of their first Homecoming football experience as students at CHS.

Patrick Ayoub, soccer player and freshman, said he is disappointed that he has to miss the football game, but said his game is more valuable.
“I will just try and catch the second half, but I probably won’t. My soccer game is more important to me, but it’s still fun to go hang out with friends at the football games. Missing the game won’t have any effect on my game, though,” Ayoub said.

Last year, the only other team to play on Homecoming Friday was the women’s golf team, but they played at 8 in the morning, so they weren’t obligated to miss it. Assistant Athletics Director Bruce Wolf said that the scheduling conflict was unavoidable.
“It is impossible to schedule all events so that they are not in conflict; it’s an impossibility. For example, all the cross-country teams were on the road and had to miss the football game broadcast by ESPN, and the women’s soccer program was on the road and had to miss it too.

“At some point, (Athletics Director Jim) Inskeep has to make a decision, when scheduling, between playing a soccer game at that time or not playing at all,” Wolf said.

Wolf said that a recent trend for many schools has been to schedule as many freshman sporting events on Friday or Saturday and remove them from school nights.

“Normally, freshman events are scheduled Monday through Thursday, and because of this, they have two or three nights of the week taken up by sporting events or practice, or something of the sort. We are starting to schedule freshman games on Friday or Saturday to help relieve their workload and help them with their homework and studies during the week,” Wolf said.

Ayoub, who attended the Homecoming game last year as an eighth grader, said he will still enjoy the week leading up to the game.

“Even though I will probably miss the game, I’ll still participate in Homecoming week the whole time. The best part is that during the week, the teachers are cool, and you get to dress up,” Ayoub said.