Myers Park Hoofprint

The Myers Park High School Newspaper

Maryanne O'Neill

Pedaling in the Park

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This year, Myers Park High School initiated a new sport into its program consisting of many athletic teams, mountain biking. Originally, mountain biking had only been a school club, but now claims a spot next to over 31 other athletic teams as part of the Myers Park community. Students with any level of experience who are interested in the sport have an opportunity to be a part of the team, meet other bikers, and fall in love with the sport.

Ava Snowdon, a sophomore at Myers Park has recently taken to the sport and plans on continuing as a part of the newly established team. Snowdon watched her brother race last year and immediately admired how team-orientated and enjoyable the races were, including the team’s workouts during practice. “I started riding for fun, decided to work at a summer camp that my coach hosted, and eventually joined the team,” Snowdon explained. 

An average practice with the team consists of workouts, riding down the Greenway in a pace-line, and “Hill of Death” hill climbs. At the beginning of the season, as well as during pre-race practices, there is a large focus on team building and goal setting. Members determine what the team hopes to achieve and what it will take for them to reach those goals. 

As mountain biking has been picking up pace as a sport, there has been an extreme increase in sales for mountain bikes in the past three years. In 2020, sales of front-suspension mountain bikes grew by 150%, and full-suspension bikes grew 92%, according to market research company The NPD Group. It’s no surprise that mountain biking out on trails, away from other people, was a great source of entertainment and a way to leave the house during quarantine. Since then, the rate of bikers has continuously grown. According to Market Research Future, a 10% growth is expected in the market between now and 2027. 

Despite the lack of mountainous terrain, the Charlotte area has many opportunities for mountain bikers. The Charlotte area alone has roughly 132 trails totaling over 273 miles in length, according to the MTB (mountain biking) project. One of Snowdon’s favorite courses is the Backyard Trail (BYT), a trail covering 1.8 miles just slightly off the path of the Sugar Creek Greenway. There are countless community parks, as well, which feature many of these trails, allowing easy access for those in the Charlotte community hoping to bike various courses. 

Aside from trails, bikers can join one of the many mountain biking clubs taking place in and around Charlotte, such as CLT MTB, Dirt Divas, Tarheel Trailblazers, and many others in various parts of the state. Other common ways to get into mountain biking are MeetUp’s or Instagram and FaceBook groups, where you can find groups near you to meet up and hit the trails or ask questions for advice from experienced bikers.. 

Snowdon encourages interested riders to join the Myers Park team and get in on the fun. “You just gotta get out on the trails and start riding; you’ll meet people out there, talk to them, plan to meet up, and meet even more people!”

Upgrading mountain biking from a club to a sport will give the team advanced financial funding, school recognition, and a hopeful chance to recruit more interested bikers. Snowdon shares the team’s excitement and pleasure in seeing their sport become part of the school. “It’s inspiring to see that we can do what we want with the sport and that we have interest from high schoolers. It’s cool to see that (Myers Park) supports something that’s different.”

Bring Back Broadcasting

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The National Federation of State High School Association (NFHS) online broadcasting has been awfully quiet this year without the commentating from two of Myers Park’s biggest sports fans. For two years, Brendan O’Neill and Harry Crowther took to the booth of the Gus Purcell Stadium and the gymnasium perch, bringing the online streaming of each home game to life. Now, O’Neill and Crowther have put down the headsets and are freshmen in college furthering their love for sports. Yet, no students have followed their footsteps. 

NFHS broadcasting gained considerable popularity throughout the pandemic, offering a way for far away family members, friends, and the general public to take part in viewing high school sports. More than 7,000 events a week are recorded, making them the leader in live streaming and on-demand high school sports.

O’Neill took the leap that set their dream in motion when he reached out to Coach Poore after reading about the cameras being installed and the use of NFHS network broadcasting. Poore was on board with the broadcasting mission, sending O’Neill off to build the announcing team for the 2020 basketball season, which quickly grew to include football and soccer seasons. 

The duo met through a mutual friend, Watt Canipe. O’Neill and Crowther hit it off and knew they would work well together with Watt alongside them in the booth for the basketball season. “I had just met Harry that year and I was like, ‘Watt, send me Harry’s number,’ because I knew Harry would be fantastic at this,” stated O’Neill.

Crowther grew up a sports fan, watching the Mets with his father and dressing up as Kirk Herbstreit for Halloween. His dream of broadcasting was set aside as he got older, until NFHS brought it back to life. “That kind of interest went dormant for a little while, through middle school and the start of high school, as I had found other interests. But when Brendan reached out that was the spark that reignited that interest, and now obviously that’s what I want to do,” said Crowther.

O’Neill’s passion for sports has been lifelong too, growing up a passionate Duke fan and never failing to recite any sport’s statistics. “I knew I wanted to do something in the sports world, I didn’t know exactly what, but then being able to do this for two years and loving it… it was honestly probably one of the top ten experiences of my high school life,” he explained.

O’Neill is now furthering his love of sports at Belmont University in Nashville, majoring in Sports Administration with a minor in Emerging Media. He has been working with the university’s athletic department, helping with broadcasting and video operations. “Doing a lot of camera work right now, just kind of building my way up…. I’m just a freshman so I’m not gonna have the microphone in my hand yet,” he informed. However, the microphone may come into play sooner rather than later, after O’Neill recently secured an internship with the longest running sports radio talk show in Nashville.

Crowther is continuing his education at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, majoring in Media and Journalism while also working the audio desk at The Daily Tarheel, where he produced a game recap for the men’s soccer game along with various interviews. “Just trying to get as many hands-on experiences as possible because Brendan and I both know, in the business we’re trying to get into, it’s really hard. You’ve got to work your way up from the bottom,” Crowther explained.

After their two year legacy, no one has stepped up to the mic to follow in the footsteps of O’Neill and Crowther. 

If you have an interest in sports and/or a sports career, broadcasting is a favorable way to broaden your horizon. Reach out to Coach Poore at [email protected] for more information. 

Frost Hits California

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After having an unbelievably successful career at Myers Park, Megan Frost has been furthering her education and love for field hockey in the heart of northern California at Stanford University. She is majoring in Management and Science Engineering and planning to work for Blackstone, a private investment company in the Metropolitan Area of New York. 

“I mean, it was always the dream to wanna go to the best school in the country with the best weather and also a great field hockey team,” says Frost. Frost never had her eyes necessarily set on Stanford, but it was an obvious “no-brainer” when she was accepted. 

In her time at Myers Park, Frost was a key player on the varsity women’s field hockey team and the women’s soccer team. She fell in love with field hockey during her freshman year as a Mustang, “I started loving it a little, actually a lot more than soccer.” 

Frost committed to field hockey, graduating from Myers Park in 2019 as the leader in goals with a total of 115 in addition to 85 assists. Making history for our school, Frost was the first-ever four time MVP (Most Valuable Player). 

Bringing that same energy to Stanford Field Hockey, Frost entered the team her freshman year and started all 23 games, had nine shots on goal, and three assists. “College hockey is a completely different sport than high school field hockey, it’s a lot faster, and you have to think a lot faster, it’s never on grass or field turf, it’s always gonna be on astroturf.”

Shortly after an unbelievable first season, the sport took an unexpected turn during her sophomore year at Stanford. It was announced that her university was to cut 11 varsity sports, field hockey being one of them. The fans and athletes fought for 10 months hoping that their beloved teams could keep their rightful spots in the Stanford community. However, field hockey was the only fall sport preparing for another season just around the corner of the devastating announcement. Field hockey played their “final season” and made it to the postseason before thankfully being reinstated after Stanford announced its reversal in May 2021.

Even after the women’s field hockey team was put through the wringer, the fight wasn’t over. The team entered the 2021 American East Tournament with no goalie, subbing in some of their best players into the missing position. Nevertheless,  Frost and her team are grateful for the seasons they’ve had, “It’s been weird, but I would not trade it for the world. I’ve had so much fun here.”

This year, during Frost’s senior year at Stanford, the field hockey team went far into the American East Championship, “Just to see the growth in the team from having 11 players and no goalies to having two goalies and a full team this year, to see what you can do in a year. That overall was really exciting and empowering.” 

After graduating from Stanford, she’ll take on and revisit the east coast once again while working in New York for a private equity firm, Blackstone. She is currently enrolled as a management science and engineering major, often used to lead into finance and entrepreneurship. Taking that next step towards her future, Blackstone is a leading global investment business located right on Park Avenue in New York City. 

As Frost is rounding out her senior year, she hopes that all athletes wishing to follow in her footsteps as college athletes find what they’re truly passionate about and run with it. “I would encourage everyone to just keep up with the sport if they love it, and if they don’t love it, just try to look for something that they do love…”