The time is 2:25 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon. With 20 minutes until varsity lacrosse practice, Layla Memar (‘12) and Jordan Smith (‘13) embark on their trekfrom sixth period history, Paly’s northernmost class, to the Churchill parking lot at Paly’s southern end. They reach their cars, promptly change into athletic clothes, retrieve their gear, and hustle all the way back to Paly’s upper field, with no time to spare. This is a daily routine for Memar and Smith, whose pre-practice routine is reduced to the discomforts of their cars, while other Paly athletes enjoy the pleasures of their own team locker rooms.
The Paly team rooms are only available for certain varsity teams, excluding boys’ and girls’ lacrosse and soccer teams. Athletes at Paly, such as Memar and Smith, are working to perfect the art of changing discreetly in their cars.
“I’ve been in a rush and left articles of clothing in my car that I don’t usually want people to see,” Memar said. “But I’m in such a rush I don’t have time to go back.”
Yet other varsity athletes, such as T.J Braff (‘11), have access to locker rooms where they spend hours before and after practice.
“During baseball we are allowed to put video games in there and make it like our hang out in there,” Braff said. “It’s fun to hang out in there with the rest of the team.”
Braff and other athletes who have access to team rooms also get the advantage of having more time to bond with their team, dropping off their equipment before school, and
having a safe place to leave their belongings during practice.
“It would be a lot more convenient if we had a room to put all of our stuff in,” Memar said. “I know a lot of people have to carry their sticks and gear around all day at school and its kind of a struggle.”
There has been a boys’ team locker room at Paly prior to the arrival Athletic Director Earl Hansen in 1988. Girls sports were not originally a part of Paly athletics, leaving girls with no communal room until a fire in 1997 burnt down half of the gym. While rebuilding the gym, a girls team locker room was added. Hansen is in control of what teams gets the rooms but does not have any intentions of changing anything until the new gym is built. In the future, Hansen plans to expand the locker rooms, providing some much-needed space.
“Both of the locker rooms are too small for the teams they currently house,” Hansen said. “When the new gym is built, hopefully there will be more room for the teams.”
Hansen was unaware how his athletes were reduced to changing in their cars and may designate a team room to the girls’ varsity lacrosse team.
There are locker rooms to change in, “If we had a room for lax players, it would make the process of getting to practice on time a lot easier, faster, and more efficient,” Memar said.
