At San Rafael High School, student athletes run the majority of the formal sports instagram accounts. The other few accounts are run by SRHS coaches. But, apart from the formal accounts, there are also informal student-run accounts used to reach a younger audience and further promote teams. These are the accounts that parents and school staff members don’t usually see.

While social media accounts are not required by teams, many athletes choose to create accounts and/or continue running accounts that alumni have passed down to them, due to the major benefits an account brings. Those benefits can include better attendance at games, team bonding, and overall more involvement with the school community. 

“It was amazing to see the community we built through social media,” says Lila Nitta, an SRHS girls soccer alum. Nitta, a 2023 graduate, started the SRHS varsity girls soccer instagram account mainly to boost attendance at the games, but to also share the team’s success. 

While the boys soccer team had a student-run account going back to 2019 that gained popularity fast, the girls soccer team was falling behind and ultimately left in the shadows. The girls soccer account was only started in 2022 but the team, of which I am a member, has already seen better attendance at games and has received more recognition around school due to the account. This has also led to better performance and results from a team that has struggled in the past. “Having all these people in our community seeing our gameday posts got us excited to play. Anticipating more people in the stands made us not want to disappoint our community that showed up for us,” explains Nitta.

These instagram accounts not only bring together the people at San Rafael High School, but all of Marin really. There are parents, staff members, different athletes, and students at SR interacting with these accounts. Mirabelle Szilagyi, a current SRHS girls varsity soccer player, says, “I have definitely been talked to about people seeing a funny picture of me on our account or that people knew about our game through instagram.”

Instagram is one of the only ways many members of the community learn about sports events. Especially the students at SRHS. Szilagyi, who has a free period and often misses the announcements, says, “Instagram and word of mouth are the only ways I hear about athletic events.”

 There are also a lot of other students and athletes from other schools in Marin commenting, reposting, and collabing with these accounts as well. 

“Varsity415 [the boys informal soccer account] was the funniest account on Instagram,” says Pablo Lechuga. Pablo only attended SR for two years and played soccer on both JV A and B during his time at SR. But, even after he left SR, he continued to follow the account because it was so funny and he had befriended a lot of the athletes on the varsity team. He always looked forward to seeing their posts and really misses how the account used to be. 

The accounts have built several lasting and positive friendships that wouldn’t have come otherwise. 

Jose Ruiz, a 2023 alum, says that, “if you look at the account you’ll see that we created a lot of content including the girls varsity basketball team and the girls varsity soccer team, and vice versa.” Ruiz played on the boys varsity soccer team and ran Varsity415. He says that collaborating with other SR sports teams on social media led to a great personal connection between players on all teams, and at the end they gained even more popularity together. They ended up sharing followers and the same people in the stands.

Although these accounts are meant to uplift members in our community, there have been some issues with some of these accounts. In 2023 there was a conflict where members of the school community had a problem with some of the content on the Varsity415 account, which ultimately, after further investigation, was shut down.

 “Without the boys it’s not the same,” says Lechuga. 

So, a year later, the boys set the account back up. But they must now keep all posts “school appropriate” to be able to keep the account up and running. 

“While the student-run account is usually filled with more humor, the [non-student run account] is [more] professional,” says Sophia Everett. This usually brings lots of criticism to the accounts, as in the past the humorous posts were not always portraying the teams in the best way. But, Nitta says “I did not want our social media to be a serious thing.” 

The Instagram posts range from people dancing to awkward selfies, and even random screenshots from the team’s group chat. It usually portrays the members in a different way than we usually see others on Instagram, given that most of the time people make themselves look as “pretty” and “perfect” as possible on social media. Which is also why others, especially younger generations, love these accounts so much and want to watch the teams play. “If there’s accounts that are interesting to follow, I’m much more likely to know about their games,” Says Szilagyi.

The “unserious” content is meant to bring more personality to the accounts, plus show the team in another light that many don’t get to see while just watching teams play their sport. 

“It shows the nooks and crannies of our team. It shows our bad moments, funny moments, embarrassing moments and helps us bond and be more vulnerable with each other,” says Ruiz.

Coach Shannon McClure, the new girls flag football coach, is encouraging her team to make funny content for their account. She assures us that once they get through the season, their instagram will take on a whole other feeling. “I’m all about funny stuff!” she exclaims.

While others find joy in running these accounts, Sophia Everett brings a different perspective to the table. “Running the account comes with more pressure than people think,” says Everett. Sophia runs the girls basketball and softball accounts. She is constantly weighed down by the pressure of coming up with good captions and taking pictures of everyone to make sure no one feels left out. Which, ultimately leads to another major concern these accounts spark: the fear of missing out, or FOMO.

“I think that [the Instagram account] could be two things, I think that it can create team bonding but at the same time can create some fomo in a team,” says Roselyn Mazariegos, who runs the girls flag football account and is also a part of the girls basketball team. 

There are always going to be people who get posted less than others on these accounts, and Ruiz says, “People always ask why one and not the other?” 

But like both Sophia and Jose say, it’s hard to get everyone in the posts because it’s hard to collect pictures of everyone to post. So what ends up happening is that the most willing and outgoing people are the ones who are posted most. 

While these accounts can and sometimes do cause harm, no one wants an account that is constantly putting people down. As Coach McClure says, “image is very important,” and every athlete involved with these accounts is made aware of this all the time.