The Morgan School’s gym is the prime spot to hold sports events and practices. Every day, the gym swells to meet the demands of both the Morgan and Clinton community. The Athletic Director, custodians, coaches, athletes, ticket takers, a staff work daily behind the scenes to make sure the gym feels like home to the Morgan students. However, with a total of six sports needing time, it doesn’t come easy. 

Athletic Director, Megan Sears explained, “The demand is a huge challenge in general.” 

With six sports and only three time slots for the gym, it’s a difficult compromise for all six teams. The practice schedule is created by Sears to help organize.

Winter sports include, fencing, boys and girls basketball, cheer, wrestling and indoor track. To help organize the time, practice slots are set for 2:30-4:30, 4:30-6:30 and 6:30-8:30 p.m. 

A shared google sheet with editing rights to all coaches is sent out to all coaches to help organize the chaos. 

“I try to make a rotation, so no team has just the early practices, just the late practices, or just the middle practices.” Sears stated. 

Coaches have a say in whether the schedule works good with them and could rotate a practice time with another team to accommodate with their schedule. In the end, if coaches can’t make a decision, than Sears can override and make a final say.

The Jared Eliott Middle School, Joel School, The Morgan cafeteria and auditorium are other options for the teams not in the gym. Gym priority is mainly based on the size of the team. Fencing and basketball are more likely to be seen in the gym due to the higher numbers of athletes. Wrestling practices are always held at Joel School since the set-up time takes longer due to the mats. Indoor Track can be found practicing in the lower hub, while Cheer will be in the auditorium or cafeteria. 

It gets more complicated on game days. “When we have competition,” Sear stated, “we eventually have to shrink the amount of time we have for every other team, including the prep time.” 

The prep time is at least an hour before a game or match. Custodians come in and clean the gym floors, set up bleachers, mats, chairs, and anything else needed. The clock operator and scorekeeper help set up scoreboards and the table. 

For fencing, it gets even more complicated. Senior fencing captain, Meredith O’Brien said, “We [fencing team] have aluminum strips that we fence on. They are big medal plates that click together, but they’re a pain to set up.”

 “The fencing team is really good with setting up, they do everything themselves.” Sears said.  Although people might not realize it, there is a lot of time and thinking in advance to set up a single event. 

During the winter, it’s just Morgan sports in the gym besides Parc and Rec on the weekends and fundraising events. The Park and Rec games are held earlier in the morning so it doesn’t interfere with the Morgan schedule. This is where the scheduling gets complicated due to the factor of games and matches

.

Once a year, the Morgan fencing team hosts a fencing tournament in the gym on the first Saturday in January. This year it was the 4th.

“The players get there around 7:15 a.m. to set up concessions and the aluminum strips. We start warm ups around 8:00 a.m., and the matches don’t start til 9:00 a.m,” said O’Brien.

On this Saturday, the Parc and Rec teams will be asked to move to Eliott, so 

the fencers can use the gym. 

The community uses the space as well. The Harlem Wizards vs. Clinton Community was held in The Morgan School gym on January 9, at 7 p.m to raise money for Postgrad. Each team had to accommodate with the game, but got their practice time in regardless. There was one practice before “prep time” which ran from 2:30-4 p.m. As soon as the athletes and coaches left, the custodians immediately started cleaning the floors and pulling out the bleachers to be ready by 5:00 p.m. 

Even with time-consuming fundraisers, Sears and the winter season teams work together to make practice places and times fair to accommodate everyone.