It’s a Friday night at Travis Field. The bright lights on the turf shine among dense crowds as the scoreboard ticks down each second. Our West Essex Football team is fighting to win the game, and yet, the only people cheering in the student section are the first three rows of a fifteen-row bleacher section.
Let’s get one thing straight: if you’re an underclassman at football games, your vocal cords are now public property. I’m not entirely sure what they’re teaching you all in the lower grades these days, but school spirit seems to be a foreign concept. No one is asking you to solve world hunger; we’re simply asking you to yell and chant when the Knights need some encouragement.
It is a disgrace to see rows of freshmen and sophomores sitting silently, while the senior class tries to carry the entire student section’s energy on their backs. Newsflash: high school goes by fast, and as a current senior, I wish I had those Friday nights back and had the entirety of high school in front of me.
Oh, and don’t even get me started on the blank stares when someone tries to start a chant. It’s like trying to start a fire with wet wood. Speaking from experience, when I tried to get a chant going, the only voices I heard were the ones around me in the first couple of rows.
Even when faced with actually being called out, you underclassmen are silent. Many upperclassmen stood on the fence of our bleachers and called out to the back rows, asking everyone to start cheering. You would think, maybe, just maybe, that would get something going. You thought wrong. It may even be quieter after someone yells at the underclassmen.
To make matters worse, it’s not only the upperclassmen who have noticed the silence of the back rows. Many parents have said that the student section needs to be louder and that this student section might be the worst they have seen in years.
Freshmen, you’re finally off that muddy, slippery hill. Don’t take advantage of the bleachers you stand on. Sophomores, you’re not the youngest anymore, so your voice shouldn’t be buried under the rug. Juniors, we somewhat hear you, but there is plenty of room for improvement.
But it’s not all about the volume of your voices; it’s about the enthusiasm. It’s about creating an atmosphere that makes our stadium a KNIGHTmare for the visiting team. And frankly, it’s about respecting the tradition of school spirit that’s been passed down from generation to generation. Not cheering when the team is doing good, or just needs one extra push, is the equivalent of telling your teacher that they forgot to assign the homework– annoying and bothersome.
The only game that I heard actual cheers from the back of the section was the very anticipated game against Caldwell. And we won! Everyone needs to take whatever kinds of spirits and chants they brought to that game and keep them going for the rest of the season. Yes, we have good numbers in the student section, but now we need to actually sound like we have a lot of people cheering for us.
So, underclassmen, consider this your official wake-up call. Learn the chants and actually make some more noise. We don’t want to be the silent student section. Show spirit, get loud and make some more noise at the rest of the games.
