BY SUMMER SALAMA & ISRAEL MALDONADO

Active Ride Shop announced that West Covina High School won $25,000 for our sports department amongst all of Southern California early in September with fly high votes. Many people came out to vote from all over our community, from city council, to some of our bulldog families. On Sept 26, Active presented the check at the Fall Renaissance Rally and was impressed with how much effort that was put into the event and acknowledged us with honor. Yet students and staff members remain unaware on where exactly the money will be invested in. Athletics Director Brian Barnes is able to decide on where the money will be going into.

An idea is that the money can be put into savings to pursue future goals for the school or it can be saved for things that a particular sport wants to focus on instead of having the need of spending the money immediately. As a former athlete of the school, I see some things that could use some taking care of and other things that need to be improved on, as soon as possible. An example is during my freshman year of 2016- 2017; I was on the swim team and us athletes were required to use the pool at Edgewood to practice. However, their pool was poorly maintained and was an inconvenience of having to travel to another school in order to practice. On the other hand, I do know that sometime soon the district is going to remodel and maintain the pool, but the swim team is currently swimming at Covina High School causing parents to have to pick up their child all the way out there and forces us to use school bus funds for transportation. Personally, I believe we can take a portion of the money from the $25,000 to invest into a new pool and to keep fundraising if required, to cover the amount. I know a pool is somewhat expensive, but it’s not entirely impossible to obtain one for the campus, especially if there is enough savings for the total cost.

Furthermore, football, basketball, baseball, and all of the other sports here on campus have designated areas that they want to improve on. They should be using the money to go to new uniforms, specifically for track and cross country, some of the athletes are required to use old ruined uniforms due to an insufficient amount of them. What should not be happening, is one particular sport should not obtain a majority amount of the money, leaving little to none for the rest of the sports. The sports department can fairly divide the money amongst all of the sports where they will be able to utilize the money to purchase some new equipment, such as new sports balls or items that will help them have better practices and games. It can provide so much for sports overall, it can provide new jerseys, new uniforms, opportunities for more varsity jackets for those who can’t afford one or sports that can’t get more than they wished. In addition, if there was better equipment it could open up more opportunities and techniques coaches can try which could improve our teams causing not only more fun experiences, but also will help piece by piece. This would overall make it much easier and convenient for the department on deciding where the money should be spent.