St. Paul Academy and Summit School has always kept a strict policy that players can’t be cut from their high school sport, no matter their skill level or work rate. However, the current merciful no-cut policy has brought in players who just can’t keep up with the rest of the team, thus creating a difficult situation for other players on the team and coaches. A policy should be created that allows players to be cut from SPA sports teams, benefitting all parties, even the player who was cut.

The SPA sports program markets itself as a place for students to experience the ups and downs of competition, but doesn’t provide students the more realistic contest of being accepted onto a team. “Competition helps students to do their best and helps them learn how to deal with both winning and losing in a respectful, socially acceptable way,” reads the SPA athletic program website. This healthy competition should begin with the risk to be cut from a team too. Students need to learn how to deal with occasional failure. The possibility of being cut is an even more realistic way of experiencing failure than the chance to just lose a few games, races, or matches, then forget about it when the season is over.

Many players take their sports very seriously. When players come around trying out the sport for the first time or messing around during practice, it can infuriate the dedicated players. The policy would also show students that they have to work hard at all times. If players aren’t willing to put in the work and the dedication, they probably don’t deserve to be on the team.

For the school-focused student-athlete, a cut policy for athletic teams can save them the trouble of falling behind both the team and on homework. Allowing students to get all their work done and then get an appropriate amount of sleep, instead of having to go to long practices and many games, makes more sense than getting punished later for not going to a practice by getting even less playing time. Students should find something they really enjoy instead of wasting away their time following the fruitless path of a sport they are not dedicated to.

SPA needs to make a policy that allows its high school sports teams to cut players. This makes the player work even harder to do their best and it makes teams much stronger. Doing this would be the logical move by SPA to make athletics even more competitive and successful and to make SPA become a feared powerhouse in athletics.