The first Thursday Night lights game rivals the varsity volleyball home opener, on September 4, and will happen one more time this season on October 9.
The reason for this schedule mishap is because there are 14 schools in our league and less than half the amount of stadiums. With our district only having two stadiums with five schools, and Olathe having the same problem. With all the stadium and scheduling conflicts, the board makes the football schedule two years in advance and the volleyball schedule is made in advance as well.
“Sometimes the stars align and it happens to be home volleyball, home football on a Thursday night.” Athletic Director Mark Mahoney said “ But this year, it’s just super weird that’s happened twice because we had three Thursday games this year.”
This change from Friday Night Lights to Thursday Night Lights challenges both sports, from being able to cheer for each other, to changes in their weekly practices, all the way to switching playing times between varsity and jv teams.
“I mean it’s kind of sad cause it’s my senior year so I don’t have many football games left,” Senior Melanie Gardner said. “But I’m not too upset about it because it’s also my senior volleyball season”
Since football is not able to have their regular practice schedule on TNL weeks, they combined their polish, walk-through practice that they would have done on Thursday with their regular practice on Wednesday and got to watch film Friday after school instead of on a Saturday morning.
“I’d have a whole weekend free and no film at 10 a.m. but I’d rather have film on Saturday, so then I could, you know, just see my fellas,” Junior Ashton Shelby said.
Since volleyball wouldn’t be able to have a student section at the home varsity game, the coaching staff and administrators decided to switch Varsity and JV playing times so students could come fill the stands.
“It was fun supporting my friend Elsie,” junior Kylenna Potts said happily. “And then they got to come right after to the football game, and it was super fun.”
Even with the sudden arrangements with the volleyball schedule, you can still hear the amount of energy on the court with the players.
“I think our connection has improved a lot, and we all play as a team together really well.” Layne Brimer said
You can also see the level of commitment on the field with these football players and the growth from past seasons to this year.
“I see a lot of people who,last year, they couldn’t speak up. They just weren’t as strong and confident. But this year, you see their ego is kind of boosted and they kind of just toughened up,” senior Marquan Washington said. “ I just feel like everyone just wants it more. Last year …we were just playing to play. But this year I feel like everybody’s coming for a purpose, and everybody gots a little something on their shoulder.”
