Chad Hepner, South’s football coach, has worked hard this year preparing the team for their biggest game yet. This anticipated win makes the team work even harder and harder to keep the winning tradition coming, and keep South students spirited on the sidelines.
“It’s more about the school spirit and sparking the school’s interest helps create excitement about the event. We do intense scouting and evaluate their players to put into our practice plan for the week,” Hepner said. “Even though this is the biggest game on our schedule, we are still preparing mainly the same. It’s mostly about executing our offense and defense. The motivation is intense, and we always get our ‘beat North’ shirts to motivate the guys.”
Student Association President Lucy Stidham ’25 has been hard at work in these past weeks coming up with fun ideas for students to follow through with, to make sure the week builds up the anticipation for this traditional rivalry.
“I think spirit week excites and makes the school week more hype for the football game. It makes it fun to see the whole school wear the themes,” Stidham said. “ We wanted to include themes that were popular in past years and ones that were easier where you don’t have to go all out so it is inclusive to attire most people have.”
Student Association Vice President Olivia McMillin ’25 has worked alongside Stidham, helping plan out the Instagram and spread the word out about daily themes. Their leadership throughout this past week has helped to enlighten South and to get everyone involved in a cohesive way.
“Spirit week gets a lot of the underclassmen excited for the game. I think it motivates them to get involved because we have a lot of stuff for kids to participate in,” McMillin said. “We choose themes at our student association meetings. We bounce different ideas off of each other. We just want the school to be empowering at this football game. I think it gets players excited to take down North for this rivalry game.”
