During the basketball season, everyone is getting ready to either play hard or cheer hard, at Highland Park Senior High. Highland is primarily known for its school spirit, and athletes that show their athletic ability while playing and working hard; not just individually, but especially working as a team. Girls and boys basketball games are often very entertaining to watch. Each and every player, on both teams, has a skill that when put together, makes the team special. One thing that brings down the girls team is the lack of support at the girl’s games because, others would rather watch the boy’s game than women’s for various reasons.

Between the months of November and March, basketball season is in session in SPPS schools. The teams work on skills, team building, cardio and other activities to make the team excel. One thing that the girl’s team has noticed, is the lack of support that they get during regular games, or even bigger games. Sometimes it’s because the boys and girls are scheduled on the same day, but other times it’s because it’s perceived that girl’s basketball is “boring, weak, or because the boys are more entertaining” according to a teammate. There are many false things said about the girl’s basketball team and the sexism level is somewhat high.

We asked some of the players to hear their opinions on what they think about the sexism between the boy’s and girl’s game. One player said: “I think that the boy’s basketball team does a good job of supporting the girl’s teams…it’s just that the people of the school have such a negative outlook on us sometimes, but I guess they’ll come when they can. I don’t know.” The concern is not with the boy’s team supporting us, it’s mainly about the community not wanting to give support.

Overall, the season was great. They worked really hard to make this season successful, and had a long lesson about confidence which showed in the majority of the games. One thing that the Highland Park Girl’s basketball team has is teamwork, and that’s what leads the team to pursue success no matter how hard the season. They overcome any obstacle they face, as long as they have each other.

On February 13th, radio show host Patrick Connor made highly questionable comments about Chloe Kim while discussing the Olympics on his radio sports show.

He said, “Her 18th birthday is April 23, and the countdown is on, baby, cause I got my Wooderson going. That’s what I like about them high school girls.” The “Wooderson” part was referencing a character from the movie Dazed and Confused, who pursued high school girls even though he himself was far removed form high school. He continued to say “She’s fine as hell! If she was 18, you wouldn’t be ashamed to say that she’s a little hot piece of a**. And she is. She is adorable. I’m a huge Chloe Kim fan.”

Connor had made these comments during the radio show Dialed-In with Dallas Braden. In the audio clip, you can hear his co-stars laughing and doing nothing to correct his brazenly disgusting comments.

KNBR, a studio he also worked for, fired him on Wednesday February 14th. However, he is still working at the station, Barstool Sports, where he made his comments.

The apology he issued was a shallow attempt to save face, even though Braden had issued a warning to Connor, stating that this is something to take very seriously, is a very severe situation, and that he’d get fired if he did something like this again.

I believe a warning is not enough. I understand the idea of second chances and providing someone the chance to change, but in these cases of sexualization of minors, there should be no doubt about immediate repercussions. Connor should have been fired from not only KNBR, but also from Barstool Sports show.

This kind of situation is in direct correlation with the over sexualization of Asian women, especially young women, and the rampant sexism in sports. This, however, is not the first time Barstool Sports has come under fire for sexist comments. In January, the company’s CEO Erika Nardini had stated that, “This is a company that intentionally is not PC,” and “At our core, our guys just want to do things that are funny and that’s what I’m focused on and that’s what I believe in.”

However, the issue with an intentionally not “PC” company, and allowing people to say what they think is funny, is that it leads to situations like the Chloe Kim one. When one removes the barrier of “PC,” one removes the protection of minors, and marginalized groups, from inappropriate comments such as the ones made about Chloe Kim. One is then intentionally othering and alienating potential audiences.

Music has existed, and been created, way back when, and is now one of the greatest thing in life. The satisfaction of listening to instruments, melodies, voices, rhythm, etc. Music allows one to “be themselves,” meaning if you favor music, it can soothe peoples feelings, it can make one excited, happy, sad, or it just doesn’t phase you.

Either way, there are people out there that use music to help them in life, or to cope with certain, “extremities.” People could/would listen to sad music whenever they feel sad! Or they listen to exciting music when they’re happy!

All these music genres were created because of how people have different opinions in music, from plain old Jazz music, to Electronic Dance Music.

The way music affects people’s lives are vast. Music can cause many different types of people to be inspired to create music! It can allow people to gift themselves with the talent of singing, dancing, or playing instruments.

People may only listen to music because it has a catchy rythm, or the vocals are understandable and lyrics were interesting, or they like the artist. No matter what the reason, people have listened to music for a long time and it affects peoples lives; especially if people understand the songs of the artists.

Some artist or singers create songs to express their feelings and try to tell a story. The songs themselves are a way to communicate with the listeners. These songs tell a story to people that they could relate to, or understand what the story meant. Many artist are like this, and use different types of music genres to express it.

I surveyed a number of Highland Park Senior High students, who are around my age, and asked them:

• “Why they listen to music?”
• “How does it ‘affect; them?”
• “When do you listen to music?”
• “Do you listen to music when you’re emotional?”

I asked a total of 10 people, and these were the most common answers.

When I asked why they listened to music, the most common answer was, that music helps calm them down, focus on certain activities/hobbies or makes them feel better.

When I asked how music affected them in life, the top answer given was, how it affects how they think, what they do and how they do things, from hobbies to work.

I then asked them when do they listen to music, and 90% said, whenever they have the time to listen to music. One person said, “Whenever it’s too quiet, I listen to music.”

I then asked, if they listen to music when they’re feeling emotional, and all of the people I surveyed said yes, because of what they were emotional about and how they could relate or be relieved of their emotion at certain times while listening to music, whether it be when they’re sad or happy. One person, out of the ten, said, “I listen to music to relief myself of stress or anything. Let it all out!”

After surveying all of these people, I’ve learned about them more, what type of music people listen to, and how it affects them. One person that took my survey said they listened to Christian music, which really shocked me, because I never thought about music and religion being related, and how it can affect certain peoples lives.

I learned that in general, music helps people cope with their own “extremities” and express what they go through.