Education
Athletics at a small, Catholic girls’ school: participation is the advantage
March 10th, 2010
By Valerie Schmalz
Carolyn Sideco is the athletic director at Immaculate Conception Academy in San Francisco, a 250-student all-girls high school that converted to a Cristo Rey School this academic year. As a Cristo Rey School, which is still affiliated with the Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose, new students must meet an income requirement and the tuition is much lower – $4,000 a year. In addition, in the Cristo Rey model, the girls work one day a week at a corporate sponsor and have longer school days the other four days.
Sideco said that has presented some challenges this first year, as parents worried that the girls would not have enough time to complete their school work at the college preparatory institution, go to their work day, and participate in extracurricular activities. But Sideco said all have been pleasantly surprised and notes that with a 125 year history the school has a lot of experience teaching girls.
The discipline of working once a week has spilled over to athletes showing up to practice on time more frequently, and despite an athletic department compromise that girls do not have to attend practice on their work days, most do, she said. Sideco, who played softball when she attended Mercy San Francisco as a student, says there are many advantages for the student athlete at a close-knit girls’ school.
“As a small school, we are able to offer participation to more students. We are able to expose more girls with less experience to different sports,” Sideco said, noting in the spring the only sport offered is softball, but ICA has a cross section of sports, including soccer and basketball in the winter, volleyball, cross country and tennis in the fall. A little more than 50 percent of the students play a sport, she said.
Sideco teaches all 77 freshmen physical education and says she uses that opportunity to encourage them to go out for sports. “I say, you should have been on the cross country team, you have a really good running stride,” for instance, Sideco said.
Growing up in the city with limited opportunities for fast pitch softball and for tennis, ICA is the first chance some get to play. In soccer, while brothers, fathers and uncles play, often the girls haven’t tried it – but when they do, their male relatives not only cheer them on but coach them.
Girls learn teamwork in athletics, and also often learn that they can play, Sideco said.
“They are given this experience in high school to see that they themselves can be athletic and participatory,” she said, adding many go on to form recreation teams after high school and keep in touch by playing a sport together. “Participation is something that we emphasize all the time here. I think it’s created a culture where they feel comfortable trying out for a new sport, for something they haven’t done before. As a department, and as a school, we really try to encourage that.”
From March 12, 2010 issue of Catholic San Francisco.
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