Creek is implementing new strategies this year to have all athletes give back to the community that serves them. The strategies range from simple community service to youth feeder nights, introducing future students to our sports program.
“The idea is twofold,” Athletics Director Jason Wilkins said. “To continue to build our athletic programs by getting the kids interested in the sports and then continuing to keep our numbers at the school up.”
With there being a restricted amount of future students who can come to Creek, the hope is that those who will come will be interested in sports.
“We need the kids in our borders to come to our school, not opt to go somewhere else,” Wilkins said. “Because they can get into our school. A kid living in Aurora can’t.”
While some teams already have established youth teams that feeder kids can participate in, other sports have to begin here.
“Certain sports are more organized at the youth level, we have lots of Creek volleyball teams or football or baseball,” Wilkins said. “But some sports like field hockey, gymnastics, maybe ice hockey, there’s not really a feeder.”
The strategy being used to solve this problem is having each sport host a feeder night. An event where future Bruins from Elementary and Middle schools are invited and informed what sports here at Creek look like.
“We’re mandating that every program does some sort of give back,” Wilkins said. “They’re required to do it, and we’re tracking it.”
Feeder nights aren’t the only way sports teams are giving back to the community in this new plan though. Already this past fall season, different sports did their give back in different ways. Some did community service, others simply picked up trash around campus. The biggest give-back program was a practice session with the Unified team.
The first of these was a one-hour session where the Unified sports group joined three different varsity teams: tennis, soccer, and field hockey, each for around 20 minutes of a small practice.
“I thought it went really well, especially for the first time we’ve ever done it. I thought that the athletes had a blast,” said tennis coach Josh Gonzales, who helped organize and run the event. “I thought that all the sports programs were very supportive of our Unified athletes and supportive of each other as well. I thought it was just a great day overall.”
The success of the first-time event paved the way for other events like this in the future that help both the Varsity teams and the Unified team.
“The biggest takeaway from this was that we have a lot of great resources here at Creek and that we need to utilize them to get all groups to work together,” ILC and ASD Teacher Carolyn Shapiro said. “And also, just build more participation with different groups of kids.”
Although the idea is new this year, the resources to execute it are already in place to guarantee this new system works. And to make sure that every sport gives back to its community, each sport is being tracked by athletics and has to create a plan for hosting these events.
“For some of [the sports], they want to do it in season, while the kids are there,” Wilkins said. “Some of them want to do it out of season, because it’s easier to do when it doesn’t interfere with practice and games.”
The give-back program wasn’t created just to do some community service; it’s meant to have a genuine effect on those being helped, as well as on the teams helping.
“It’s a privilege to play a sport here, and some kids just can’t do it,” field hockey Head Coach Tori Karsten said. “So how can we give back and really make Creek more than just sports, more than just the wins and losses, but really become kids of service as well.”
