Sports Return to Collegiate
After a multi-year hiatus, Collegiate proudly announced the return of interscholastic competitive sports to the CSM community for the 2021-2022 school year.
The foundation of the Athletics Department at CSM started with competitive football, track, cheerleading, basketball, and volleyball, but insufficient funding and lack of student participation led to putting the sports program on hold while the school was still growing. Over the past few years, staff and scholars have expressed strong interest in bringing back a sports program to CSM and have worked hard to petition and fundraise for its return.
The goal of the Athletics Department is to serve and direct student athletes along a path that combines their educational pursuits and athletic participation. This school year, CSM offers competitive girls and boys soccer, boys basketball, and cheerleading.
As with all sports teams, the hope for CSM teams is to win games during the sports’ seasons; however, regardless of the win-loss record, CSM scholars are taking away big wins off the field from their experience.
Coach Rachiele, a CSM girls soccer coach, expressed, “At the beginning of the season I think the girls were frustrated with learning something that was new to a lot of them, but they eventually started to understand the process and be patient…Some of our older players learned what it meant to encourage younger players when the team was losing heart…They also learned to communicate better with each other and with the coaches.”
Coach Patterson, a CSM boys basketball coach, shared, “There is a minimum academic requirement to play on the basketball team. It’s been exciting for me to see our athletes’ grades go up and to see some of these players make Honor Roll for the first time.”
As Collegiate develops a stronger athletic program, coaches and scholars are excited to see how their teams will continue to grow.
Coach Williams, a CSM cheer coach, said, “Having athletics back at Collegiate will create a more well-rounded student and individual. When they leave here they’ll know how to be leaders, they’ll know how to be a part of a team, they’ll know how to work with one another–even someone they don’t necessarily get along with.”
Next year, as Collegiate continues to offer competitive sports, CSM Athletic Director Brandon Nunnley shared his hopes for the future: “My hope for the Athletics Department is to provide a place for scholars to compete at a high level and incorporate our core values in the process. We want to see our students gain self-confidence, work hard, and just have fun.”
