West needs more money and facilities to add sports

Currently, West offers 8 sports for students. “‘We have boys and girls cross country, boys and girls basketball, girls volleyball, boys and girls wrestling, boys and girls swimming, and boys and girls track,’” West Principal Mr. Smiley stated. That’s already quite a lot!

So far, West has had successful cross country, volleyball, and basketball seasons. On March 7th, the West swimming and wrestling season kicked off. Students are enjoying them, but some wish we had more sports teams. 

Mr. Smiley would love to add more sports, but there’s one drawback. “‘Part of our problem is that if you start adding sports, most of the middle schools in PCCS don’t have the facilities to do them,’” Smiley said. To play each other, every middle school in the district would have to have the facilities. 

Adding more teams would require a lot of money.  “‘One of the things we’ve talked about is adding a football team. We would have to pay for goalposts and fields. That’s not worth it because we have the Canton Lions and the Plymouth-Canton Steelers,’” Smiley explained. When kids are playing for those teams, they most likely won’t be playing for West.