Throughout the years that humans have been on this earth, we have made multiple ways to entertain ourselves. One of the biggest and most popular ways that is almost universally enjoyed by everyone is sports. Sports are insanely fun to watch and play whilst also keeping you in shape while you do so. Because of the popularity of sports it is obvious that they’re starting to be played in schools. Commonly in the United states, the sports that are played in high school tend to be American Football, Baseball, Basketball, or Soccer. It isn’t only confined to this small list. Schools can offer more sports and activities that keep their students intrigued.
One of the biggest things that keep the schools interested is the competition, as most sports have a goal to make it to state. Taking a sport to state is a big deal for the school. It can get a lot of eyes, increase sports funding, and get more people into sports itself. The biggest issue with this system is that to make it to state and especially to win is really difficult. To win you have to be the best in the state which means you have to go up against a lot of teams, and most of the time when a team makes it to state, they tend to be really good at what sport they do. What we need is an easy and consistent way to make it to state each year and to win, and I propose that we bring in a new sport.
Jai Alai is very popular in Latin American countries and the Philippines. This sport is commonly stated to be the fastest ball sport in the world. The only state that plays it is Florida. Jai Alai (which was known as Pelota Vasca until the newer name was used in 1875) is a sport where there are two or eight teams of one or two people that go against each other. There are two versions of the game. One that is mainly played in Spain, France, and Mexico called Partido where you have two teams that play 10 to 40 points. The other version of the game is commonly played in the United States, Mexico, and the Philippeans called Quinielas. In this version there are six to eight teams that play in a round robin fashion going 5 to 10 points. Whilst playing the sport you are put in a room with three walls that is 176 feet long, 40 feet width, and 40 feet high and these arenas are made out of granite, concrete, and other special materials that can handle the ball speeds. The players are equipped with a long hook-like racket called a cesta that makes it where the player can catch and throw the ball at extreme speeds, and a fiberglass helmet. To play the game the players throw a two inch ball that is made out of virgin rubber against a wall and while it is bouncing back the opposing team must throw the ball back at the wall before it bounces twice, doing so must be done without holding onto the ball or juggling it.
To get students to come to these games we need to make some incentive to want to watch. One of the most popular things about Jai Alai is that it can be played as a gambling sport. There are casinos around the countries that play this sport that treat this game like it is horse racing. Now we can’t obviously gamble money when we get this sport, so we can gamble Kahok Kudos (which have an economical value of $3.33), but that would obviously be very wrong for obvious reasons.
To play this sport we obviously need to figure out where it will go and how much money it will cost. The school is building a new athletic area for the school. This Jai Alai court would have to go where that area is going to be. As of right now we don’t have how much money they are currently planning on putting into that out to the public yet. But we do know what certain things they are going to do with the field. We can build it where there will be the fields for Soft/Baseball and multipurpose fields. They are hoping to be done with the whole area in three years but there is no way to know for sure. They said they will be slowly opened to the public as they complete the area so we can probably get it built within the next year or two. To build the court it can be pretty expensive. To build the walls, add the concrete floor, and make enough risers to add it will all add up to be about $1,264,000 to build a decent Jai Alai court.
To pay for the equipment it will cost about $350 for all of the equipment for the players to use. For each sport there needs to be a coach, which the school will have to pay for. The school pays their coaches with a percentage of their salary. Most first year coaches who coach a smaller sport make 6% of their salary. As Jai Alai becomes our best sport, the pay may rise up to where the more experienced coaches get paid but we will have to wait and see.
Going through all of the budgets and the money that we have in the school budget enough money throughout the school years to be able to pay for the making the court, getting the equipment, and hiring coaches may not be able to be done within the next coming school years but if done along the other fields it should be done within the next three to four years.
Collinsville High School is said to be the school of champions so why do we stop at these specific sports? We could be the champions of so much more and being the country champions of Jai Alai is something that is very possible.
