One of the comments that I am sick of hearing, after I tell people which school I go to, are different variations of Aren’t your sports kinda bad? A lot of the students at schools in our area always make misconceptions about the sports at LHS. While some of our teams certainly need improvement, the majority of the teams are much better than we think.
We need to remember that our school, compared to schools in our area such as Arapahoe, Heritage, and Columbine (all 5A schools), is in a lower classification (3A and 4A in most sports). Classifications are determined by the population of the school, and from a large population of students rises talent in many different areas. Larger populations tend to be more diverse in the abilities of students, from academics, performing arts, and athletics, so there is an increased chance for the next Grammy winner or Olympic gold medalist to arise from the student population.
A lot of people compare LHS’ sports teams to these higher classification schools who have a larger population, which is an unfair comparison since these schools have much larger teams than we do, and larger populations naturally have much more talent available.
The other thing that we have to keep in mind is that LHS is not known as a “sports school”, like Arapahoe and Heritage. We are known for our academics and arts, which means our sports just don’t get as much attention.
Even though we might not quite size-up to some of these larger schools, and we may not be known for our sports, LHS Athletics has had many great accomplishments that have been made in the last couple of years. Here are some major accomplishments from the past few years:
- The Boys Cross Country team won Cross Country League for the first time back in 2023, and won it again the next year in 2024! They hope to keep up the streak, and win again this year.
- The Girls Swim and Dive team won League for the first time in school history last year! Then, in the spring, the Boys Swim and Dive team won for the second year in a row, making it the first time in school history that both the boys and girls teams are reigning League Champions in swimming. The girls team beat Heritage and Arapahoe in all of the relay events and multiple individuals, and the boys team beat Arapahoe overall.
- The Poms team placed third at League last year, a remarkable feat and a big showing of improvement, especially from where the team was a couple of years ago!
- The Track and Field team has multiple League champions each year, and some athletes even qualified for State at the end of the season.
- Both the Boys and Girls Wrestling teams have huge showings at League and State, with many top three finishes, especially the girls team, who absolutely dominated the League Championship last year after it was the first year that LHS had its own girls team!
- Both of the Boys and Girls Tennis teams have sent people to State over the last few years, and have had excellent showings at Regionals, with the girls placing 2nd last year.
- Girls Golf won League last year, and beat Arapahoe and Heritage in the LPS tournament.
Our sports may, in fact, be “good” if more people heard about some of these accomplishments through the grapevine. The thing that I have found is that people in the LPS district might hear about them, but other school districts don’t. This keeps our an reputation withstanding, that our sports just suck.
While this might not be a problem that can be fixed right away, the population of Littleton High School need to rise up together and believe that our sports are good!
