Have you experienced the Friday Night Lights for yourself? The adrenaline, the noise, the eruption of the crowd when your team scores a touch down. Most Sports at East are like that, but the one thing is consistently argued about between students and teachers, entrance fees.

East currently has a $2 entrance fee for students that can show a school ID and a $5 fee for parents. Athletic director Steven Tracy explains why.

“We do need to offset the cost of equipment somewhere or another and we try not to put much of that the students but every little bit helps” Tracy said.

But others such as Mr Heath, a former coach at East, said that “if the students are willing to come out and support the program they shouldn’t have to pay.”

As you would think many students believe they should not have to pay to get into games however when student athlete football players were interviewed they consistently stated that “we need money for equipment”. Many students such as Austin castro, a sophomore and baseball player at East disagrees with that.

“Fall athletes think students should have to pay just because they don’t have to anyway since fall athletes get in for free” Castro said

This brings up the question of Student athletes being treated differently than regular students.

Head football coach Tyson Leblanc states that “Athletes are held to a higher standard for how they should act and how they should carry themselves since they are part of a team”, Leblanc also states that the “athletes deserve to be rewarded for being a part of something bigger than themselves and that reward is getting into sporting events for free.”

So, what do you think? Do you think its athletes get treated differently than students? Or do you think athletes should be rewarded? Let us know.

Written by junior William Whitted. Edited by staff writers for Oswego East’s online news magazine The Howl.