A wide receiver running down the sideline, he scores a touchdown, the crowd is going crazy, but then, nothing changes. The parents are screaming because the score did not change, but the scoreboard is off because it is broken. There have been many issues regarding the scoreboards at our athletic facilities at the start of both the fall and winter seasons. The sports scoreboard located on Glover Stadium field was out from the start of fall sports in August until the Homecoming game in football. This impacted all fall sports teams that played and practiced on the field including, football, soccer, and Field Hockey teams. The middle school gym has two scoreboards and shot clocks on each basket. The far side scoreboard was out from the beginning of the volleyball season to the middle of January during basketball season. This impacted the volleyball and basketball teams during their respective seasons.
Mr. Toombs and the athletic department worked hard to fix both scoreboards. The process of fixing the scoreboards was not the quickest in both seasons due to the scoreboard’s company being located in the midwest. Teams had to adjust playing without a scoreboard. All fall sports that played on the Glover Stadium field were played with one or two portable scoreboards which were hard to see for fans and was an adjustment for players. Junior starting football quarterback and All-League player, Frankie Reese stated, “It was definitely an experience, it gave me a constant drive to do my best and try my hardest because I never knew who was winning.”
The basketball teams that played in middle school adjusted to the broken scoreboards by placing portable shot clocks diagonal of each other, with one being on the far left corner of the court near the backside of the gym, and the other one being diagonal of it. With the broken scoreboard being on the far end of the gym, each team’s players had to look behind them when they were scoring on the far end basket. Basketball player Charlotte Marion stated, “The team had a hard time looking at the shot clock in the corner, so the team had to communicate more when the shot clock ran down.”
Even away teams had difficulty due to the scoreboard. During the Basketball Booster Club Holiday Tournament, the Clarkstown North coach and players did not know the time was running down in the first quarter because they could not see the time closest to their basket. This caused them to not get a shot off to end the quarter. They ended up winning the game, but this could have been an impactful play in a close game affecting the outcome of both sides.
The athletic department’s effort to get both scoreboards fixed has helped players and fans to be able to see the score and time on the clock during games and practices.
