The Encinal football field is a keystone piece of the school. Many sports are played there, assemblies take place there, and its where some go at lunch. But most important of all, its where the seniors each year graduate. That was until this year of course, the field went under construction to put a full turf and rubber track. This is obviously a huge upgrade for the school, but it does mean that the seniors this year will not be able to graduate at our school. For many seniors this will be a big deal not graduating high school at their school, but for some they just want to graduate.
“Honestly I’m not too mad since our field was never that good,” said senior Henry Garcia.
Many students have similar feelings about the field which is most likely the reason why the city is working to fix it up. Many soccer games and practices were canceled last year because the field was way too rained out to be playing on.
“I really don’t care,” said senior Joseph Cutting similarly to Henry, “I think that the Encinal field was pretty sub par.”
Garcia and Cutting are both student athletes who use the field for their sport which was affected by the construction. Sports for all of their senior year as well as the seniors next year are affected by the field’s construction. Causing them to be played at Estuary Park.
“I personally don’t mind too much,” said senior Man Chan, “We can’t really do anything about it.”
With all three of these students having very similar opinions on the field it makes it somewhat apparent how students feel about graduation at COA and our field as a whole in general.
Other reasons a student wouldn’t mind the graduation being at COA is because they think they have a nicer field than us.
“If anything I think it will be more special,” Joseph Cutting said. “Since its a college.”
Cutting and Garcia don’t really find the field to be too special or have much of a valuable importance to them it seems.
“Yea I mean especially with the construction,” said Senior Man Chan when asked if the conditions at COA would be better, “but I think I would prefer it if we had it at our school.”
All in all it seems that the attitude many people have is that they would have liked for the graduation to be at our school. But they don’t really mind too much that it isn’t on our field.
“I think I’d rather have it here,” said Man Chan. “It’s where we went for four years… I’m not doing any sports on it, I don’t mind too much,” when asked about how he felt about the graduation.
On the other side of things there is senior Charlie Snell who played both Football and Soccer on the Encinal field for all four years of his highschool life.
“I could care less,” Charlie said. “I’d rather keep that behind me.”
Hearing that come from him may be a surprise to some considering how many sports he played and for how long. But it does really go to show how some of the senior class of Encinal High School really feels about their home field. These seniors graduating seem to realise how beneficial this will be for the school. Even the ones who don’t think the field means that much to them have acknowledged that it could mean more to others.
No matter how you put it, all of the seniors have to have some feelings about this, after all, they are still graduating off campus, away from where they grew up.
