Abby Lang - YB feature
People are always sprinting. Football players are sprinting to the end zone, students
sprint home after their last class of the day, and females, passing you in the halls everyday,
are sprinting for help, trying to find an end to the domestic abuse that fills their lives. The
CDC confirms that around one in five teens are abused in a relationship. Despite many high
school students being oblivious to this battle many women face, the Varsity football teams
acknowledged this struggle and found it worthy of their time to shine some light of the issue.
After hearing about the impact former Westside football player Nate Skold’s video
to stand against domestic violence had on his college campus, Varsity football coach Brett
Froendt thought of replicating the video with his team. Promoting this issue at the high
school level would allow students at Westside to become mindful of a problem that has
plagued relationships for years.
“Hopefully if we [the Warrior Football team] support it, it will bring the topic to
light,” Froendt said, “Because it’s not just in adults, or even in college where this happens, it
happens in high school too, but the problem is nobody talks about it.”
In an effort to create this video, Coach Froendt partnered with varsity football player
and producer of WTV, Connor Flarity. With his journalistic abilities and desire to make an
impact, Flairty found making this video a win-win situation for him. Being able to use his
passion to make an impact for a cause, he claims, was worth every extra second of his time.
“I’ve never been affected with it [domestic violence], but it made me realize how big
of an issue this really is. It’s not something you always think about and if you’ve been blessed
to never have violence in your life, then you really don’t know and you’re kind of blind to
it,” Flairty said.
The goal of this video was to shed some light on a topic usually left in the darkness.
This darkness that afflicts relationships within Westside needed to brought to our attention.
The football team supporting this cause is something small they can do to create a ripple
effect on the football team, on Westside, and ultimately, all teens within the nation.
“This video opened my eyes to see how much of an issue it is,” Flairty said, “And
hopefully this video will help open a lot more eyes and put an end to domestic violence.”