As she stepped up to kick, Sophie Alcumbrack McDaniel took a deep breath and found the courage to overcome societal standards. Now, she carries that mental strength into every new sport she takes up. From a young age, Alcumbrack McDaniel felt compared to the boys in her PE class. Even in the small moments, like playing kickball in her elementary school gymnasium, she often worried that she would embarrass herself in front of her classmates.
“I feel like there’s a lot of pressure and expectations on people when joining any sport,” Alcumbrack McDaniel said. “Just to muster up the courage and put yourself out there could be really embarrassing when you’re being compared to others.”
Now a senior at CHS, Alcumbrack McDaniel has joined Lads, the CHS Rec & Ed co-ed soccer team. The team is largely comprised of upperclassmen, so Alcumbrack McDaniel has many friends who joined as well. Lads emerged six years ago as a fun and low-stakes option for any CHS student who wanted to play soccer. The point of the team wasn’t to win, it was just to have fun without the pressure of perfection. However, in the current 2025-26 season, other competing teams seem to be in it for more than a good time.
Senior Sylvia Biermann, who also plays for Lads, feels that the team has often been pitted against soccer teams whose players also compete outside of Rec & Ed. This can easily turn the friendly environment into a overly competitive and unenjoyable one.
During one particular game, when the Lads played against Saline High School’s rough-playing, all-boys team, many CHS girls felt targeted.
“It was so chill, like we were just having fun,” Alcumbrack McDaniel said. “But, it’s almost like they had hatred. It was almost like they were putting on a performance.”
Reflecting on that game, Alcumbrack McDaniel was surprised by how her teammates were treated and the disrespect she felt afterwards.
Despite the occasional rough patches, she has really enjoyed playing for the Lads and thinks that the co-ed component makes it more enjoyable. She appreciates that it’s a light-hearted game where she can be active and build relationships with people she may have not been close with before.
CHS sophomore Clara Woodside similarly has overcome challenges with her sport. She first began playing for Pioneer Women’s Hockey and has forged close relationships with her teammates.
Woodside feels she must try harder to be recognized as a female hockey player. She knows 10-year-old boys who have dreamt of joining the NHL since learning to skate. She notices the contrast between their self-confidence and fiery passion and her own anxieties that she will not be able to play hockey collegiately.
“It’s sad because I feel like women don’t feel they could have that chance to be at that level,” Woodside said. “The standards are so high, and I feel like I could not achieve that.”
She believes the reason she can’t play in college and beyond is that she has less access.
There are only 45 college Division I women’s hockey teams, but there are over 60 Division I men’s hockey teams, making recruitment more competitive for female athletes because there are fewer schools that offer hockey.
In elementary school, Woodside disliked racing her classmates because of the preconceived societal notions that boys are faster than girls. Even if this stereotype were true, she has typically disliked racing boys because they have always made it too competitive.
“I’d get to the point where I could race all the girls, and I’d probably win,” Woodside said. “But then I’d get to the point where I’d go complete with the fastest boy in school, and I was like, ‘No, I don’t want to do that,’ because I just had this pre-existing notion that I would lose.”
Biermann also knows what it’s like to play hockey — but this time, it was with an all-boys team. She was the only girl. Over the years,
Biermann has tried her hand at multiple sports. She played soccer for three years in elementary school and was the only girl on a boys’ hockey team from ages six to eight. For the past five years, she’s been diving for Skyline and for a club team. She enjoys watching sports as well, but has found that there is less televised coverage of women’s sports than men’s.
“I think it’s a problem that men’s sports are better funded,” Biermann said. “It’s partly because they get more viewership for men’s sports, but there’s more viewership because they’re so available, which creates a wage gap for athletes.”
Following Biermann’s reflection on systemic inequalities that shape the sports she has joined, Alcumbrack McDaniel encourages female athletes to focus on confidence rather than expectations from others.
“Embrace your individuality and embrace the things that make you you,” Alcumbrack McDaniel said. “If people are so insecure to project gender stereotypes onto you, then they are insecure about that, so don’t let it affect you.”
