Cleveland took a trip back to the 1950s this past week after a war against women erupted in the comment section of a post from @clevelandwbbvar on Instagram, the girls basketball team’s student-run account.
The basketball team took to Instagram following their double-header at Grant High School on Thursday, Feb. 1. The boys team played first and had a decent-sized student section cheering them on. However, once the girls’ game began, the crowd, made up of mostly boys, dissipated.
The girls team brought attention to this matter in a satirical post to express frustration. The post had a picture of fans – the group mostly made up of boys – and text overlaid saying that “Cleveland High School doesn’t support women’s sports.” The caption read, “BREAKING NEWS. Cleveland’s whole student section was seen walking out of the #16 ranked girls team game, after staying for the entire #23 ranked boys game. It’s 2024… girls are good at basketball too.”
“We used this game as an example in the post because we were able to see such a drastic difference in crowd size,” said senior point guard Kama Waiwaiole. “We understand people don’t want to stay for four hours, but they had already come all the way out to Grant during rush hour,” she continued.
Within minutes of the post being shared, comments flooded in. People created burner accounts to leave hurtful words under the post anonymously. Before the team account muted the comments on the post, almost 300 had been shared.
“I’m just upset that it turned into something so gross,” Waiwaiole continued. “That wasn’t the point of us posting.”
A fellow member of the girls basketball team, senior Laura Kelly, agreed, saying, “We weren’t saying you have to watch the girls instead of the boys’ game, we were just trying to show a fact.”
Several members of the team echoed this opinion that it shouldn’t be one or the other. “We want the best for the basketball program as a whole on both sides,” said Kama Waiwaiole.
For many, the act of leaving the game was disappointing, but ultimately the main concern became the comments. Girls basketball coach Po Waiwaiole said, “The original post was a fine issue to bring up, but it’s revealed a much larger problem.”
Team members, students, and community members alike have expressed worry about the behavior displayed in the comments. Shared on the public post were comments like, “I think they would have more support if they played in bikinis,” and “Maybe if you squatted with good form people would come to your games.” Both of these statements were made from Instagram accounts that appear to be fake and made simply to leave anonymous comments.
“It’s really terrible and demeaning,” said senior team member Amalia Galm. “The comments made this all go beyond just basketball. It shows the divide they see between men and women.”
While many of the comments were hurtful, some supporters showed up in the comments to defend the girls’ basketball team and women’s sports in general.
One commenter wrote, “If you won’t support a team because you feel the game is unenjoyable then that’s your prerogative, but the women’s basketball team at Cleveland deserves respect. Dedicating yourself to a sports team and putting in the work to be competitive while juggling a million other things is hard for anyone regardless of gender. Have some human decency to not put an entire team down just for not living up to your standards. Have some perspective please.”
In response to this incident, the Cleveland administration took action. Vice Principal Sean Murray told the Clarion that students who used burner accounts and have been identified as commenters on the post are banned from all remaining sporting events this school year. If an athlete, they may forfeit their eligibility.
The Administration has also been in communication with Cleveland’s Building Consent Culture (BCC) class to initiate a larger conversation with those involved and affected by this incident. A potential plan is to hold a required meeting with sophomore, junior, and senior boys to talk about respectful behavior and the bigger picture of misogynistic culture at Cleveland.
As another way to support women at Cleveland and simultaneously spread awareness, BCC is teaming up with screen printing teacher Ezra Ereckson, and advisor of healthy masculinity club Brian Fain to create t-shirts with the slogan “Everyone watches women’s sports.” Anyone is welcome and encouraged to bring a blank cotton shirt to room 372 on Thursday, Feb. 8 before school or during fifth and sixth period. The completed screen-printed shirts will be done on the following day for pickup. Check out @chsconsentculture on Instagram for more information.