According to the Athletics page of the Urban School website, roughly 300 students play sports for Urban across 33 sports teams. Since its establishment in 1966, Urban has expanded its sports program, including putting a gym at the center of the 2016 Salkind Center expansion. Yet its reputation as a school focused on academics and arts still feels true for some students and faculty.
“I’ve heard we’re more of an…artsy school,” Rio Cruz Hunt ’26 said. Cruz Hunt is one of many people to say that they thought of Urban as less athletically focused than other Bay Area schools.
“The reputation it has now is that people see it as an artsy alternative school,” said Director of Athletics Joe Skiffer, who graduated from Saint Ignatius High School in 1999 but toured Urban as an eighth grader. “I didn’t have a view of Urban sports [back then]. Sports and Urban were like two separate entities.”
Director of Counseling Services Amina Samake ’99 spoke to the lack of competitiveness in sports tryouts when she attended Urban.“I don’t remember there being cuts,” she said. “If you maybe weren’t as athletically inclined, you would probably be on JV. It was more like, ‘Okay, you want to participate? We’ll make space.’”
Cruz Hunt, who plays club lacrosse, said that Urban’s sports are perceived as lower quality compared to sports programs at other schools. “[People] know Urban for being, like, really bad at lacrosse, and they thought I went to a different school,” he said.
Urban markets its sports programs in multiple ways to inform outside perspectives on the school. “In [our materials] We use photography,… [and] facts about the sports teams that we offer,” said Zac Rose, director of marketing & communications. “Part of it is to reassure families, both parents and students, that there’s going to be a competitive sports program at the school.”
The Instagram page @urbanathletics_goblues is one way Urban promotes its athletics program. Promotion on social media can influence prospective students’ perceptions of Urban sports and potentially dictate whether or not students choose to apply to Urban.
“[The] Urban Athletics Instagram is very much like, ‘Go get them, Blues!’ It’s about making sure people know when games are [and] that everything is kind of recorded and documented and honored,” Rose said.
Cruz Hunt expressed qualms about the lack of social media posts in video format. “We don’t have people record our games that often. … If we did, we could have highlights [for people],” he said. “I’ve scrolled through Instagram reels and seen highlights from other teams. And I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s pretty cool, I want to go to that school and play sports [there].’”
Classic Shulman ’28 felt that some of Urban’s Instagram posts she has seen don’t match the seriousness of the athletes. “[Urban’s] advertising [has] a very community-[focused] sense [and feels] less … competitive. There were senior night posters, and those were goofy photos instead of [the athletes] in games,” she said.
While 75% of students participate in sports, the fact that people outside of Urban perceive it as a school with weak sports programs results in a school less focused on athletics than other schools. “[Students] don’t come to Urban just to play sports. That’s not what the school is about,” Rose said.
