On May 9, 2025, Moorestown Friends hosted their first-ever Sports Fair. The Sports Fair featured presentations from all MFS Upper School sports teams. Captains from each team set up a station with a poster that included information about the team, goals, and other fun things they wanted to add, as well as a game or challenge related to the sport.
The event began with Athletic Director Isaiah Coleman giving a speech about the purpose of the fair: to get more kids engaged and aware of MFS sports. Coleman also shared a story during his speech about his regret having not joined the Boys Lacrosse team in high school. He encouraged high schoolers to seize the opportunity to join team sports and challenge themselves outside of the classroom.
“Our hope is to have students who are already playing sports to give information to facilitate activities,” and “to allow kids to engage in a sport and see if they can create a liking to it or an interest to the point where they want to come out for sports next year,” Coleman explained.
Captains running their booth invited students to participate in the activities they had planned, like hitting a tennis racket or trying to score a soccer goal. The captains also taught students about their sport and gave information about what playing the sport looks like outside of the game itself. Teams also got to interact with possible teammates and build relationships with them.
Cross Country runner and stand operator Allan Wang ’26 hoped the sports fair could help get more rising freshman and sophomores to join the team.
“Cross Country is a team built on community, the more people we have and the more connections we have, the greater the team will be,” said Wang. “My best friends are from Cross Country and we stay best friends. That’s how it is on this team.”
For coaches, the Sports Fair was a great opportunity to increase the number of students participating in sports. Coaches got to see all the students participating in activities and see the interest in their sport spike. Coaches even got to interact with possible players, so the players and the coach could get familiar with each other.
Middle School History Teacher and Upper School Boys Lacrosse Coach Paul Rizzo shared how the Sports Fair could impact growth for lacrosse after having their season cut short due to a lack of participants.
“Engagement this year has been an all-time low. Our season got cancelled due to low numbers and injuries, and I think a lot of that was due to the lack of engagement with lower classmen,” said Rizzo.
Rizzo believes that with the combination of the sports fair and changes to the PE program, sports engagement will improve.
Reid Lutz ’28 thinks that the sports fair helped encourage him to engage in sports more often.
“I think it does [encourage me to try a new sport] because of the community that you build with your teammates and how much fun you have throughout the season,” said Lutz. “The posters and activities people set up make me see the many aspects of each sport, and it gives me information about the sport.”
