When our students wear a Franklin jersey, they become part of something larger than themselves.
They represent their teammates, Franklin Academy, and the community that supports them. Now in our third year of athletics, I have seen the program become much more than a collection of practices and competitions. Athletics has created another place for students to build friendships, develop confidence, take on responsibility, and experience what it means to belong to a team. At Franklin, that matters.
For many neurodivergent students, social connection does not always happen automatically. Athletics can provide a structured and shared purpose that makes connection more accessible. Students do not have to begin by figuring out what to talk about or how to enter a new social group. They already have something in common: a practice, a game plan, a teammate, or a goal they are working toward together.
With opportunities in soccer, basketball, ultimate frisbee, tennis, eSports, swimming, and other activities, students can find different ways to participate based on their interests and strengths. Practices and competitions bring together students who may not otherwise spend time with one another and create natural opportunities for conversation, encouragement, and friendship.
A teammate may become someone to sit with at lunch, celebrate a success with, or turn to after a difficult day. Those relationships are important, but so are the challenges that come with being part of a team.
Athletics asks students to communicate when emotions are high, respond to feedback in the moment, work through disagreement, manage disappointment, and consider the needs of others alongside their own. For students with different communication styles, sensory needs, or support needs, these situations may require coaching and practice. That is part of the learning.
Our coaches are not simply teaching students how to play a sport. They are helping students practice how to communicate, recover from mistakes, advocate for themselves, support a teammate, and continue participating even when something does not go as planned. Those are skills students can carry into classrooms, relationships, college, work, and adulthood.
Athletics also creates opportunities for leadership.
Leadership does not always mean being a captain or being the loudest person on the field. It may look like organizing a warm-up, helping a teammate understand a drill, encouraging someone after a mistake, modeling good sportsmanship, or recognizing when the group needs someone to step forward.
These everyday moments help students understand that their actions affect the people around them and that they have something valuable to contribute. Over time, students can build initiative, accountability, confidence, and a stronger sense of responsibility to a group.
Athletics also supports something more fundamental: developing a healthy relationship with movement and routine.
Through participation, students learn how to prepare their bodies for activity, manage energy, recognize the importance of rest and recovery, and make movement a regular part of their lives. The goal is not for every student to become a lifelong competitive athlete. It is for students to discover forms of movement they enjoy and routines they can carry with them beyond Franklin.
The impact of athletics extends well beyond the individual athlete. Games and competitions create shared experiences for students, faculty, staff, and families. Wearing Franklin gear, attending a game, celebrating a win, or supporting a team after a difficult loss creates visible moments of school identity and pride. Students see their peers representing Franklin, and the larger community has another reason to come together around them.
Competing against other schools adds another important layer to that experience. Interscholastic athletics gives students opportunities to represent Franklin beyond our campus, travel to competitions, experience familiar high school traditions, and challenge themselves against new opponents.
With that opportunity comes responsibility. How our students communicate, compete, respond to adversity, and treat others becomes part of how they represent Franklin. Learning to carry that responsibility is just as important as learning the rules of the game.
As Director of Athletics, I see the value of our program not only in scores or wins, but in the moments that happen around them: a student joining a team for the first time, a teammate offering encouragement, an athlete learning how to respond to feedback, or a student beginning to see themselves as someone others can depend on.
Those moments are the reason athletics matters at Franklin.
Each season gives our students another place to connect, contribute, take risks, and grow. And as our athletics program continues to develop, so does its ability to strengthen the sense of community, confidence, and belonging that we want every Franklin student to experience.
