It’s sports on the biggest stage. It’s the end goal after years of blood, sweat, and tears. It’s the Olympic Games.
The 2028 Olympics will be close to our hometown of sunny San Diego, since it’ll be hosted by Los Angeles, just around two and a half hours away. But there’s more! Athletes will compete in five new sports during the Games, including cricket, lacrosse, squash, baseball and softball, and flag football. What does this addition mean for our very own Bishop’s athletes who play these sports?
Brad LaDrido (‘26) plays both squash and lacrosse and has been playing each for four years and eight years, respectively. Although he enjoys playing squash, he doesn’t see many places in the United States celebrating this sport, so he hopes its introduction in the Olympics will amp up the popularity in the U.S. and across the globe.
Brad first “witnessed the growth of lacrosse this past summer with the 2022 World Lacrosse Games held in San Diego” and can only imagine how exciting it would be to see people all over the world play lacrosse. He can’t wait “to finally show the rest of the world how exciting the sports [he] loves to play are and why they deserve national attention. Hopefully it will result in more kids wanting to join the lacrosse and squash teams and play,” Brad reflected.
Natalie Marvin (‘25) has been playing lacrosse since she was in first grade, at just seven years old, and has loved the sport ever since. She noted that lacrosse has given her so much, including some of her best memories, like “winning the CIF Division I Championship last year surrounded by all [of her] best friends.”
According to USA Lacrosse and Natalie’s own account, lacrosse is the oldest sport in the country. “It’s incredible to watch as the sport has developed and grown all thanks to the Native [American] creation of lacrosse,” she said. “Lacrosse is such a beautiful game that incorporates teamwork, sportsmanship, and community. It will also be so amazing to see how different counties connect through their love of lacrosse and see the world unite to play a sport that has given me so much throughout my life.”
Natalie added, “The introduction of lacrosse into the 2028 Olympics is amazing not only for the sport, but for all kids chasing their dreams.” For Natalie, a recent Division I Harvard Women’s Lacrosse commit, having the sport introduced into the Olympics is “an incredible goal to strive for, for [herself] and other players [her] age, and truly makes you believe anything is possible.”
Juniors Hugo Avila and Jayla Stafford play baseball and softball, respectively. Hugo has been playing since he was three and thinks that baseball’s addition to the Olympics “would bring a lot more attention to the sport. The combination [of the] Olympics and the World Baseball Classic would help more people see the sport and learn to love it like me,” Hugo said. He’s hoping that this addition could make baseball more popular in Europe and other countries, since it’s already well-loved in the U.S. and various Latin American countries.
Jayla has “been playing softball pretty much [her] whole life.” She started with tee ball and later recreational softball and eventually realized how strong her love for the game was; she has competed with a travel/club team since she was nine. One of her favorite memories was during her 14U session, when she “hit the game-winning walk-off to advance [her team]. At that moment, I knew my future was in softball and that was the turning point of knowing I was going to have to do everything I could and work as hard as I could to play D1 like I always dreamed of.” And in the world of sports, dreams really can come true –– Jayla is committed to play D1 softball at Duke University.
But for Jayla, the addition of softball to the 2028 Olympics is much more than just a positive for the sport itself, but for women’s sports as a whole. “There is often the lack of representation [for] women’s sports and having softball make another appearance in the Olympics allows for so many more opportunities for many talented women,” she expressed.
She added that the introduction of softball in the 2028 Games could also mean more opportunities within professional softball leagues, which currently “major[ly] underpay these women athletes.” Jayla thinks that this update “will allow many to see the abilities of women in sports and women in softball and help change the stigma around women’s sports.”
She concluded, “There are so [many] talented young women who have had to move on from their dreams just to be able to afford to live. Hopefully this introduction will help women all around the world and allow them to play the sport they love just as men can do for a living.”
The Olympics are the greatest show of sports in the world –– and with these five new sports being added in 2028, the show is about to get even better.
