Although the winter sports season took a brief pause to ensure student safety during the surge of the Omicron variant, it has resumed and has been underway for over a month now. Among all the daily practices and games, teams share a common factor: music.

The importance of music and its effect on individuals cannot be overstated. It is present in almost every aspect of our lives — appearing at venues, in our cars, and in nature. But to what extent does music appear and impact the Boston Latin School sports teams, particularly hockey and basketball?

Before a practice or game day, the boys’ hockey team starts off with a team-curated playlist.

“We have a warm-up playlist that we play on a JBL to hype us up,” Seamus Reardon (II) says. Fielding songs from Kanye West, Lil Uzi Vert and Polo G, the team playlist consists mostly of rap. He continues, “Everyone requests songs to queue if the aux isn’t up to par.”

Reardon’s teammate, Benjamin Young (II), comments that “rap is probably the most popular with some classic rock and old classics.”

To get the blood flowing, the hockey team blasts upbeat and “hype” songs. Following this, they typically end the day off with some calm classic rock. Music appears to be valuable to the hockey team, as Young also says the entire team “chipped in for a big speaker at the beginning of the year.” The presence of music is clearly a necessity on their rink.

Similarly, Sam Griffin (II) of the boys’ basketball team has a playlist that mirrors that of the  hockey team’s for wins and warm-ups.

“A win playlist is celebratory music. […] Warm-up songs are hype up songs like drill, fast rap and motivational rap,” Griffin says.

Although the girls’ basketball team warms up to rap music with songs from Lil Wayne, Drake and DaBaby, there is a strong interest in pop music outside of warm-ups.

“Some of our favorite artists are Taylor Swift, FINNEAS and Conan Gray,” Paige Fitzgerald (II) adds.

It seems that outside of the rap on the warm-up playlist, the girls’ basketball team listens predominantly to Taylor Swift. Honorable mentions include Playboi Carti, Kid Cudi and Teyana Taylor. 

A gender divide is present here, where most of the female athletes refer to themselves as “Swifties,” the die-hard fans of Taylor Swift. Players on the boys’ team, however, share a sharp distaste for pop artists to start their practices.

Across the hockey and basketball teams, there is a prominence of rap music in their playlists, with artists such as Kanye West, Drake and Playboi Carti.

As Boston Public Schools ushers in the return of sports due to a short pause induced by the Omicron variant, we are excited to see how the presence of music among our sports teams develops.