{"id":1518,"date":"2019-03-20T13:54:25","date_gmt":"2019-03-20T17:54:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2018-2019\/?p=1518"},"modified":"2019-04-09T11:24:24","modified_gmt":"2019-04-09T15:24:24","slug":"put-some-respect-on-their-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2018-2019\/put-some-respect-on-their-name\/","title":{"rendered":"Put Some Respect on Their Name"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Why the Lady Titans Should Not Be Overlooked<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Hunter Langley<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Winning is the goal. In the last decade, the girls basketball team has done nothing but win. But even on their senior night, the girls drew less of a crowd than the boys team, who played across town and lost 63-49 to West Potomac.  Despite the lack of support, the girls recorded a decisive 74-55 win over rival West Potomac for the final home regular season game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\tWith a 66-13 record over the past three years the girls basketball team has been a special program, and one of the best at T.C. It is run by Gunston District Coach of the Year Lisa Willis. Willis, a former top-five pick in the WNBA draft, was only hired in September but is an invested coach who has continued to find success coaching the Lady Titans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\t\u201cMy biggest disappointment with the undervaluing of women\u2019s sports at T.C. and elsewhere is that women are playing a role in this,\u201d said Willis, \u201cthere are tons of women and girls not supporting their kind. That\u2019s a problem. I have talked to females at T.C. and they said boys basketball is more lit. That clearly means that they haven\u2019t given us a chance.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\t\u201cWe play good music. We make good plays often. We get hyped. We are an entertaining team, but the issue is women not giving other women support,\u201d said Willis. \u201cI am adamant about providing the girls\u2019 program with a top of the line experience because I know what it is like to receive the gear, the shoes, the perks, etc. So, the plan is to create a program full of leaders who are being treated like leaders in all areas.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\tThe roster boasts multiple all-district players with seniors Sasha Bates and Trinity Palacio, Gunston District Player of the Year, on the first team and N\u2019jya Hopkins on the defensive first team. Palacio said, \u201cIt will always be hard for female basketball players because [basketball]  is a guys sport… it is wrong when people say watching T.C. girls is boring because we definitely play our hardest every game\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\tThis is not to say the boys team should not get a ton of support from Titan fans. The boys played excellent basketball this year and completely turned around the program, but if the boys are away and the girls are at home it makes sense to give the girls home court advantage. The Lady Titans play just as hard and practice just as much as the boys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\t Senior guard Geonna Stockton said, \u201cI think people don\u2019t come out because we are females and many do not think we are as exciting to watch [as the boys]. I think it is really unfair that people only come out and support us when we go far or there is a big game.\u201d    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\tThe boys basketball team has the girls back on this issue. Nine out of ten boys varsity players polled said that the girls team is undervalued in comparison to them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\tAll Occoquan Region First Team player, senior Jaquan Johnson said, \u201cPeople overlook them because they are girls. More people should support them, they are really good.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\tSenior guard Tim Sellers said, \u201cI feel like the girls should be valued just as much as our team. Yeah we played more uptempo and the games are more packed, but they have been going at peoples necks for the past four years and some people don\u2019t know it.\u201d It isn\u2019t just seniors that are in support of them, junior guard Tobias Kargbo said, I think the girls should get a lot more support than us even though we are changing the boys basketball culture at T.C. Williams, the girls have been doing this for four consecutive years. They deserve as much clout off this as we have gotten this past year. Shout out to all the seniors on that team they truly impacted the girls program for the last four years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\t\u201cI do not think we need the fans because we are going to play hard regardless but we just want people to recognize what we do,\u201d said Palacio.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why the Lady Titans Should Not Be Overlooked Hunter Langley Winning is the goal. In the last decade, the girls basketball team has done nothing but win. But even on their senior night, the girls drew less of a crowd than the boys team, who played across town and lost 63-49 to West Potomac.  Despite the lack of support, the girls recorded a decisive 74-55 win over rival West Potomac for the final home regular season game. With a 66-13 record over the past three years the girls basketball team has been a special program, and one of the best at T.C. It is run by Gunston District Coach of the Year Lisa Willis. Willis, a former top-five pick in the WNBA draft, was only hired in September but is an invested coach who has continued to find success coaching the Lady Titans.  \u201cMy biggest disappointment with the undervaluing of women\u2019s sports at T.C. and elsewhere is that women are playing a role in this,\u201d said Willis, \u201cthere are tons of women and girls not supporting their kind. That\u2019s a problem. I have talked to females at T.C. and they said boys basketball is more lit. That clearly means that they haven\u2019t given us a chance.\u201d  \u201cWe play good music. We make good plays often. We get hyped. We are an entertaining team, but the issue is women not giving other women support,\u201d said Willis. \u201cI am adamant about providing the girls\u2019 program with a top of the line experience because I know what it is like to receive the gear, the shoes, the perks, etc. So, the plan is to create a program full of leaders who are being treated like leaders in all areas.\u201d The roster boasts multiple all-district players with seniors Sasha Bates and Trinity Palacio, Gunston District Player of the Year, on the first team and N\u2019jya Hopkins on the defensive first team. Palacio said, \u201cIt will always be hard for female basketball players because [basketball]  is a guys sport… it is wrong when people say watching T.C. girls is boring because we definitely play our hardest every game\u201d   This is not to say the boys team should not get a ton of support from Titan fans. The boys played excellent basketball this year and completely turned around the program, but if the boys are away and the girls are at home it makes sense to give the girls home court advantage. The Lady Titans play just as hard and practice just as much as the boys. Senior guard Geonna Stockton said, \u201cI think people don\u2019t come out because we are females and many do not think we are as exciting to watch [as the boys]. I think it is really unfair that people only come out and support us when we go far or there is a big game.\u201d     The boys basketball team has the girls back on this issue. Nine out of ten boys varsity players polled said that the girls team is undervalued in comparison to them.  All Occoquan Region First Team player, senior Jaquan Johnson said, \u201cPeople overlook them because they are girls. More people should support them, they are really good.\u201d  Senior guard Tim Sellers said, \u201cI feel like the girls should be valued just as much as our team. Yeah we played more uptempo and the games are more packed, but they have been going at peoples necks for the past four years and some people don\u2019t know it.\u201d It isn\u2019t just seniors that are in support of them, junior guard Tobias Kargbo said, I think the girls should get a lot more support than us even though we are changing the boys basketball culture at T.C. Williams, the girls have been doing this for four consecutive years. They deserve as much clout off this as we have gotten this past year. Shout out to all the seniors on that team they truly impacted the girls program for the last four years.\u201d \u201cI do not think we need the fans because we are going to play hard regardless but we just want people to recognize what we do,\u201d said Palacio.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1520,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2018-2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2018-2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2018-2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2018-2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2018-2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1518"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2018-2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1521,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2018-2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1518\/revisions\/1521"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2018-2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2018-2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2018-2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2018-2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}