The cold bleachers rock back and forth to the rhythm of the repeated jumping up and down to the blaring speakers beneath the stands. Freshman Joshua cowers behind the broad shoulders of a senior, when I come to the realization I am standing in the “senior section” of the stands, and will subsequently get kicked out if my age is discovered. I eyed the fumbling boy leaping up and down like a maniac next to me. Standing on those stands, feet slipping off the metal rained on the night previous, I felt duped.
Such is the reality of a home high school football game, and the impetus for school-wide “spirit”. Why did I brave the cold elements of mid-Autumn Michigan to see my high school’s football team get beaten by a town half-an-hour over? Why was there so much of a school-wide focus on this sport, this activity specifically? Why were other sports, clubs, and activities not given the same courtesy?
I, obviously, cannot speak for the other thousands of students who have walked this school’s halls, but the older I have grown, the more bitter I have become when it comes to school spirit.
While no slight to the football team, the efforts they exert, and the time spent training, the culmination of school spirit should not exclusively be football.
That same freshman year, I saw my cross-country team run through three feet of mud and score 3rd at regionals, placing themselves at the state meet. I was not varsity yet, but I was filled with pride watching those I had become friends with that fall succeed so well. They had competed against schools twice if not three times larger than Grosse Pointe South, and still pulled away qualifying for states. (Not by any means an easy task.)
There was no school Instagram post about the team’s success. There was no school-wide emphasis of support for the cross-country team, and their success was left to be forgotten for all except those on the team.
I look now to the countless other teams across Grosse Pointe South whose success is not known to me. School spirit should not be a one-way street. All sports, activities, and clubs should hold the same significance as football, and all other teams. It is a disservice to all other incredibly skilled athletes and competitors across our high school to not hold them to the same significance.
