Circulating across the Nation, sports teams have been affected by bussing issues: “The bus was late quite a few times for soccer […] it was like 30 minutes late,” said sophomore Gretchen Foehringer.  Locally and in our own district, sports teams have missed games, been late for games, or had their competitors not show up because a bus was not there to transport them appropriately.

According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “The bus operator shortage has been an issue for years but was exacerbated by the pandemic as drivers left over health concerns, steadier jobs and other reasons.”

Although those reasons are valid for the past bus driver individuals to quit/reduce hours at their job, bus driving is still a widely needed occupation, and this issue needs to be resolved.

Reliable bussing is a crucial factor for success in sports because if the bus is not there to get you to your game, how can you win?  

Arriving late can be detrimental to a team’s success: a soccer game is 90 minutes long,  a lacrosse game is 60 minutes long, and bocce games are, on average, 20 minutes long.  For these sports that have shorter games, arriving late can entirely mess up the arrangements with the opposing team and result in a forfeit.

Senior lacrosse player Jeannine Eichenlaub states, “[for] the one game, instead of playing the other team, we scrimmaged against ourselves.”  This is proof that a late bus can entirely change the outcome of a day, and it can mess up a sports team’s schedule.

“The federal government this week announced that it is giving states the temporary option to waive a portion of the test that school bus operator applicants need to take to obtain a commercial driver’s license in an effort to help alleviate the shortage,” said journalist Andrew Goldstein from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

This is a good thing because it will allow for there to be more licensed school bus drivers, but since part of the test is temporarily being waived, can this result in less skilled drivers, and even more accidents?  Since bus drivers have the lives of countless kids in their hands, they need to be in full control of their bus, and they need to know how to drive it superbly. 

With some negative impacts resulting from these lamentable shortages, it is critical to maintain a positive attitude and a great mindset.  When issues arise, Tennis team Coach Mr. Miller states,  “We play on.”  

It is important to be able to respectfully adapt and overcome difficult situations in the world of sports in order to have healthy competition, and this National Shortage is breaking the barrier to prove which sports communities represent the utmost sportsmanship.

To read more about the bus driver shortage, check out this article: https://www.post-gazette.com/news/education/2022/01/06/Federal-plan-aims-to-help-alleviate-school-bus-driver-shortage/stories/202201060178