Sabre Investigations: Why are there no night games at SJC?

Since St. John’s moved to its current location on Military Road in the 1950s, it has lacked something that many high schools in America has: lights. But why?

It turns out there are two parts to the decision.

“The National Park System. The Department of Interior has restrictions on where lights can be placed within proximity to a national park.” - Mr.
Hart, Athletic Director

Noise late at night is also a factor, as it can be harmful to the animals in Rock Creek Park and disruptive to those in the neighborhood.

The first component is St. John’s can’t overrule federal regulations for high school sports. But, there's a second component to the lack of lights at St. John's.

“When St. John’s moved to its current location in the 50s, it is my understanding that a covenant was established with the neighborhood association in which the school agreed to not install lights to host night games.  I am unsure of the reasons behind the desires of the neighborhood.” - Dr. Themistos

The Sabre reached out to the Advisory Neighborhood Commission for Chevy Chase, D.C, for comment on the pact, but had not received a response at the time of publication.

All Sports Affected

Despite the fact that the students overwhelmingly want St. John’s to have the “Friday Night Lights” experience in football, it isn’t the only sport affected by the policy. Both fall and spring sports are affected by the ruling, limiting programs to earlier game times and sporadic practice schedules.

Rugby player, Breyden Tate ‘25, gave his perspective on sharing the upper field with softball and track in the spring:

It gets a bit frustrating sometimes. When we practice knowing we can only do certain drills or have to stay longer afterwards in order to use the full field for a problem that would seem easy for any other school to solve. Sometimes we go into games feeling like we haven’t had enough time to prepare that week because we’re so limited. - Breyden Tate ‘25

Upper field isn’t the only field facing time slot issues. Quinn and the Upper Field often have similar issues with practice availability. Baseball and Football divide up Fernandez based on season, but field availability isn’t the only issue.

“Practices feel rushed a lot of the time. We usually start at 3 and finish when it gets dark, which is fine in the late spring or in the summer but it’s a problem in the fall and winter. We can’t get to what we need to work on sometimes or rush through it and don’t work on it properly. It risks injury too, for a problem that everyone wants solved.” - Nate Hawton-Henley ‘25, Baseball

Even with practice time being a major concern, players and students want St. John’s to be able to experience Friday Night Lights.

It’s unfortunate that we only get to play one night game a year. Friday Night Lights are much more fun. There’s more energy involved and it’s almost always against a major opponent. I feel like we’d get more people at the games and increase school spirit. - Bobby Luongo ‘25, Football

The school spirit here at St. John’s is so strong, and the fact that we can’t experience Friday Night Lights on a consistent basis just comes across as a missed opportunity. We would get more attendance at specific football games, and I believe it would benefit our athletes as well, as playing under those conditions can bring out passion that we may not see otherwise. - Luka Radovic ‘25, Student

Student Poll

The Sabre published a poll on Instagram that fielded 139 responses about their game time preferences. 122 Students (around 88% of poll takers) answered that they preferred Night games over day games. Students taking the poll varied by grade, sport, and background, supporting the conclusion that the majority of the student body would prefer the school have lights for night games.