Some Bear River students believe that junior varsity sports teams live in the shadow of the varsity teams. Do you believe that JV sports are receiving the recognition they deserve?
JV girls softball coach, Jeffrey Bickmore, thinks that his team gets enough attention in general.
“I think they get enough attention and recognition,” he said. “It’s really about developing kids to play in the varsity level. They will get more time for more attention when they play on varsity.”
Freshman JV softball player Cheyenne Strong thinks that JV does not get the attention they deserve.
“No, I don’t think they do,” she stated. “I feel like varsity gets all the recognition, and JV really doesn’t get any. Not to mention, varsity wins all these banners, and gets all this attention from everyone, and I don’t think we have that for how hard we work.”
Senior Dylan Sinclair, as a varsity swimmer, provided an opinion from a different point of view.
“I don’t think JV teams get enough recognition; it’s really all about varsity in every sport,” he said. “JV does so well, and I think it should widely publicized. They should be just as recognized as varsity.”
Freshman and JV boys basketball player Harrison Alexander agreed with Bickmore that JV gets enough attention, but he also acknowledges that more people tend to go to the varsity games than the JV games.
“I do think we get enough recognition, but other teams get a lot more, because there weren’t a lot of people at our JV games,” he said. “There were a lot more at the varsity games.”
Agreeing with Strong, Sophomore Kekoa Reed was of the opinion that his JV soccer team doesn’t get any recognition.
“My team was basically undefeated,” he said. “[Out of] six games, we won five, and tied one, and I don’t think anyone even knows.”
Reed also believes that students and parents at Bear River don’t give their attention to JV teams, specifically soccer.
“Not many people here pay attention to soccer,” he said. “No one really wants to watch soccer that much, and we are a JV team. Nobody seems to care about JV that much. However, I do think soccer gets more recognition in other places around the world.
In all sports, competition usually varies. Some teams are more physical than others, depending on the sport. Strong mentioned the differences between JV and varsity games, and how they might affect the recognition between the two.
”Most people think the [JV] games aren’t as hardcore as varsity, so people want to watch varsity more than JV,” she said.
“All the competition varies, some teams are really good, and some teams are really bad,” said Coach Bickmore. “It depends on the school. We can have teams that are really hard, or we can kill the other team.”
Although Strong stated that most people go to varsity games more because of how “hardcore” they are, Alexander thinks the JV competition has gotten harder since last year.
“I think all the other teams are really competitive and a lot more physical than my previous years playing basketball,” he said. “I think that there is a lot more physical contact than there used to be as well.”
Although JV doesn’t seem to get a lot of attention from their peers, Coach Bickmore thinks that they do get a good amount of recognition in the yearbook, and in the Bear River Current.
“I think we get a fair amount of recognition in journalism stories, and in the yearbook,” he said. “People always come in to interview, or take photos for things.”
Although varsity teams tend to gain more recognition, Alexander describes how varsity and JV teams aren’t that different.
“I’m still a freshman, so most of the kids on the freshman team are my friends,” he said. “For playoffs, I got pulled up for varsity, and they treated me just like their normal teammate.”
