Arshiaa Prem || STAFF WRITER

At the bottom of the slope, the skiers were met with thunderous applause. 

Skis carved tracks into the snow as racers crossed through the final gates. It was over in mere seconds. Helmets came off, breath condensed into fog, and the noise started before the times were even posted. Teammates pressed right up to the barriers, shouting over one another while waving poles in the air. 

When varsity skier and Andover High School sophomore Rachel Ong crossed the line at an interscholastic race, the crowd was hollering at an intensity she had not heard before. Ong did not even have to look to know how she did. 

“The whole time, everyone was so supportive,” Ong said. “Everyone was cheering, and it just made the experience so much better just knowing that my team is there behind me to support me, and that they’re proud of my achievements.”

Across AHS, girls’ sports are full of moments of hard work, energy, wins, losses, and everything in between. The effort is obvious if you are there to see it, but often, not many people are.

At AHS, the issue is not whether girls’ teams are successful. The issue is how often that success is actually noticed.

“In track, everything is measurable,” said senior track captain Leah Sun. “A fast time is a fast time. It doesn’t matter who runs it. But that doesn’t always mean it [boys and girls] gets the same recognition.”

“When someone asks about sports like basketball or hockey, most people think of [men’s leagues like] the NBA or NHL first,” Sun said. “Women’s leagues like the WNBA aren’t always the first thing people think of—and that difference is very visible.”

According to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), “During the 2024-25 academic year—242,341 student-athletes competed across NCAA women’s championship and emerging sports, marking a 14 percent increase over the past decade.”

Co-athletic director and former Division I basketball player Kerry Cashman has witnessed this change firsthand.

“In the last eight years, there’s been a surge,” Cashman said. “With athletes like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, it’s been amazing. There is a market for it—people want to watch girls’ sports.”

That momentum, she explained, has begun to “trickle down” into college and high school athletics. But this forward shift is still in motion. 

“It feels a bit like a fight,” Cashman said. “You have to carve out space.”

That unbalanced tension shows up in the stands here at AHS. Despite consistent, high-reaching success, girls teams’ games and high-level championships often draw smaller crowds than their male counterparts.

“I believe we’ve won more championships with our girls’ sports than with our boys,” Cashman said. “And our athletes are incredible… but the fans don’t show it necessarily, which can be disappointing.”

However, this imbalance isn’t always intentional. Some sports, by nature, are harder to follow or access. For senior Hazel Faulkner, a rower committed to the University of Rhode Island whose sport takes place off-campus, spectatorship comes with additional challenges.

“It’s just not as easy to watch,” Faulkner said. “With rowing, we’re moving the entire time… you might only see 10 seconds of a race. And a lot of people don’t really understand the sport.”

Part of the answer might lie in a long-standing tradition. High-volume attendance sports like football and basketball are historically centered around boys’ sports, and have been part of school culture for such a long time, drawing more attention naturally. The momentum often leaves other teams, especially girls’ teams, less supported. 

“It’s almost expected for our girls’ teams to be good,” Cashman said. “Which is a good thing and a bad thing…. It’s like, ‘All right, the girls are always good.’ But we should still show up for them.”

For athletes like Faulkner, seeing her sport on an international stage like the Olympics was both validating and inspiring. Recently, growing interest in women’s sports is apparent, with Americans watching over 46 billion minutes of women’s sports. 

“It makes you think, ‘Maybe that could be me someday,’” Faulkner said.

Ong echoed a similar sentiment upon seeing Lindsey Vonn’s Olympic journey. 

“It was inspiring to see her courage—to know that you can do hard things, and even if it seems impossible, it may not be so far out of reach,” said Ong. 

Even as moments like that inspire athletes to keep pushing, their efforts don’t end when they leave the playing field. For some, their work continues out of sight. 

“There’s a lot behind the scenes [to enter the college level],” Faulkner said. “People don’t see the emails, the phone calls, the ups and downs of recruitment. It’s not just something that happens.”

Yet what keeps her committed has little to do with recognition. Instead, it’s something less material but more immediate.

“I’m not rowing for myself,” she said. “I’m rowing for the entire boat.”

That idea of showing up for other people comes up again and again. It is what gets athletes through practices when they’re tired—through moments where it feels like it is easier to quit than to keep moving forward.

The stands might still be quiet, and the attendance might still be lower than desired. But on the track, in the water, on every type of playing surface, something is happening every single day. 

And sooner or later, more people are going to start noticing.