October, 2023
By Isabella Herrera and Elizabeth Landin, Staff Reporters
The boys’ soccer, girls’ soccer, and cross country teams have brought wins, titles, and glory to KIPP Austin Collegiate. The boys’ soccer team has won state three times, the girls’ soccer team has made it to state three times, and the cross country team has made it to state five consecutive times in the past years.
Nonetheless, all three teams face challenges regarding adequate resources going into the 2023-2024 school year. Soccer and cross country teams require a good field and track in order to practice well or they could encounter injuries. Unfortunately, the soccer field on KAC’s campus is not regulation size for a high school field. This results in their money being spent on transportation to the East campus field for practice and games. And members of the cross country team have to walk a far distance in order to get to their practice space. Due to the lack of a field and track these teams have to put more effort into finding a practice space and have to be more cautious about injuries.
Furthermore, some members the soccer and cross country teams believe they don’t receive the same amount of help and publicity as some of the other teams at KAC. However, this isn’t their biggest challenge; instead it’s the lack of funding to fix up their space and get new equipment.
When asked why the KAC soccer and cross country teams have these challenges, athletic director Anthony Carrizales said, “The budget we get is to provide the basic needs for our teams.”
In addition, because KAC shares its campus with KIPP Austin Comunidad (an elementary school) and KIPP Austin College Prep (a middle school), schools have to agree to the times when they are occupying the field. This results in even more challenges because these teams have to practice in heat and in bad conditions of the ground, depending on the time they’re outside. Carrizales explained that each sport in KAC gets equal funding, so whatever other money they earn is from fundraising; which is how some teams get new equipment, such as matching shoes or matching tops. “Whenever we see teams with new equipment, that’s because they fundraised and paid for it,” said Carrizales.
Carrizales also pointed out that KAC has made adjustments such as splitting the girls and boys soccer periods to ensure that both teams have their own time to practice.
Soccer coach Jonathan Avila also discussed how the lack of a soccer field affects both the soccer team and KAC as a whole. “There’s a lack of a sense of school pride and community because we don’t have a field to play at,” he said. He also mentioned that this is a “logistical nightmare” for the coaches and players because they have to carry a lot of equipment and supplies to simply make a “home game” happen.
12th-grader Viviana Vallejo, captain of the Girls Varsity Soccer team and runner in the Cross Country team, said, “The field isn’t in the best condition, the field has trash and rocks that do not help the team practice. The field is bumpy which doesn’t allow the ball to run smoothly, and it affects our practice since we are not training in the best facilities.”
When asked why the school didn’t build a full-sized field when the school was built, Carrizales answered that he unfortunately didn’t have a say and couldn’t do much about it since he wasn’t working at KIPP at the time.
Cross country and track coach William Jabour said, “We don’t have a 400 meter track but we go run 400 meters around the church. We can’t do 200’s but we can mark out two hundred meters”
Another challenge that presents itself due to our campus not having a track, is that this limits the athletes time to train during the school day. On a regular day track athletes run about 10 minutes to their practice space, then they complete their training, however, this is cut short because they must set aside the time to run back to campus before dismissal. Additionally, the KAC campus doesn’t have showers for athletes to use after their training. “We don’t have the convenience of a shower,” said Jabour. “We don’t have all those things. So the ones who train before school have to shower at Barton Springs… or everybody’s gonna get to school sweating, and it’s not gonna work out.”
“We improvise,” said Coach Jabour.
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