In the Spring of 2022, Fort Worth Country Day’s athletic director, Leigh Block, decided to create a new council to give a voice to student athletes and promote the more athletic side of the school. The council is made up of around 25 Upper School students, representing all three sports seasons.  

“Put simply, our purpose is to enhance the FWCD student-athlete experience.   We feel that improved communication between student-athletics and our athletic administration and coaches will help us achieve this purpose,” Leigh Block, Athletic Director, said.

The first mission of the year for the council is to find more ways to bond with lower schoolers. 

“Kids get more involved because they connect with the student athletes. They want to go to games,” Block said. 

Community is one of the most important values at Country Day, and the school prides itself on its ability to have grades junior kindergarten through twelfth in one place at the same time. 

“I am most excited about really fostering that sense of community between the high school and the lower school,” Jeremy Henderson ‘23, who is a member of the council, said.

There are multiple students on the council who are excited for these new activities to begin and the responsibility it brings. 

“I think one of the changes from the past might be the effort level that we are putting into it; not like we haven’t put effort in the past, but I think making it like more of a priority to us as athletes, knowing there are younger kids looking up to us,” Sutton Howard ‘23, also a member of the council, said. 

Howard and Henderson are both track stars at the school, and Howard is also one of the captains for the volleyball teams. Henderson even has ideas for this coming spring to help the younger students bond with high schoolers.

“We could have the high school leading the kids through a training session. Of course, nothing too hard, but actually being on the track all together,” Henderson said.

Having younger students at games helps promote athletics at the school, and the Lower School Division Head, Trey Blair, is excited to get started. 

“It will help them connect more with the athletic side, especially when they move to middle school, and sports teams become a really big thing,” Blair said. 

Coaches are also looking forward to this new plan.

“We used to have little ball girls or they would come in and we put a little jersey on them and they’d sit for a game,” Shelly Rains, Head Girls Basketball Coach/PE coach/Assistant Softball coach, said. “Those kinds of things I think we need to go back to, just kind of open them up and give them our schedule, we’d invite them, maybe even have little leagues bring their teams as well.” 

Other than building community with the lower schoolers, the other main mission of the Student-Athlete Council is to create more spirit surrounding all sports, not just the football and boys basketball teams. Alumni Relations Manager/Boys Volleyball Coach Patrick Powers ‘05 wants to see more energy and recognition for the boys volleyball team. Less than 100 schools in Texas have boys volleyball programs, and Powers is proud to be coaching one of them.

 “I think as we continue to win games, it will keep driving interest especially since boys volleyball is a relatively unknown sport in the area. Hopefully it drives some curiosity to discover what the game is really about,” Powers said. 

The boys volleyball team has had a good season so far and shows promise for a good season. Along with boys volleyball, girls volleyball is a very underrated and under supported sport at FWCD. 

Senior volleyball player and middle blocker Sydney Airheart shared her hope for the season.

“I think sometimes even volleyball is kind of overlooked, but once we have people in there cheering, the energy is through the roof and everyone plays so much better,” Airheart said.