Where was the love for Falcons

Hello? Cactus Shadows students? Are you out there? Where are you?

It’s not like me to rain on anybody’s parade or spoil anybody’s party, but I can’t let this pass without some mention. We all know Arizona is a state full of fair weather fans. People either like whatever team they rooted for before moving here, or they’ll support the home team whenever it’s convenient (i.e., winning).

But Cactus Shadows can’t even seem to get bandwagon fans out of its student body. That became evident again last weekend when Falcons’ students were in short number during the baseball team’s championship game win at Tempe Diablo Park.

The victory was the cap of an incredible year for the school. Indeed, never in its history has there been a year like 2005‑06. The Falcons won five state championships–seven if you count cheer and dance–and had great success in other sports that didn’t win it all.

Girls volleyball, girls golf, boys soccer, boys tennis and baseball finished their respective seasons calling themselves the best in the state. But attendance by students at these events were weak at best.

Parent support, like most schools, is solid. But where are the students, who bring excitement and can give their team an extra boost during the game? They don’t know what they missed.

What’s really surprising about all this is smaller communities sometimes identify themselves through their youth sports, but obviously not here. While towns like Page travel en masse across the state to follow their sports teams, Cactus Shadows students obviously have better things to do than drive across town.

Here, the town councils of Cave Creek and Carefree do not even acknowledge sports accomplishments. And our mayors aren’t making bets with other towns’ mayors over sports.

Maybe the message out of all this is unless you are a parent of an athlete, sports just aren’t big here. The prep sports scene has no community identity, and that has kept Falcons games from being social events.

And that’s a shame–because we may never see another year like this again.

If you would like to reach the reporter, or submit a local sports item of interest, send an e‑mail to jason@thedesertadvocate.com, call (480) 488‑1204 or visit the office at 6528 E. Cave Creek Road.