Imagine this: our team makes a game winning buzzer-beating shot. The players look to the stands, ready for the crowd to go wild . . . and the crowd is just the players’ parents, and the cheer is not wild so much as middle-aged mild.
Here in Harrison we have a huge football fanbase; it’s the main sport most family and friends bond over. So smaller crowds can be expected for other sports due to things like not knowing much about the sport, the strange weather we get, or confusion in different schedules. Nevertheless, our teams play better when our spirited student section manages to show up and support our fellow students where we can.
Each season seems to have a main sport at our school. Fall has football, winter has basketball, and spring has baseball. We have a notable large football student section, maybe a little over half of that attends basketball, and mostly family and a few friends can be spotted at the baseball fields.
The spirit we bring to our football student sections is unmatched. We show up and show out in order to support our football through both the highs and lows, even through our tough losing streaks. With our spirit we have many events as well, like pep assemblies, performances on the field, and spirit weeks. With all this energy we hype up our football team and boost this morale; however, this spirit is not present in all of our sporting events.
The main issue being brought up this year is our lack of both attendance and spirit at the varsity basketball games. However there still usually is a crowd present on the Friday night games. The main problem with attendance is the unusual schedule of the basketball games. Basketball games can range from starting at 3:00pm to 7:30 pm and most commonly occur on Tuesdays, Fridays, or Saturdays with the occasional Wednesday and Thursday. With this irregular schedule it makes it hard for students to get off work or push aside schoolwork for a basketball game. Compared to the football schedule which was always a Friday night at 7pm.
With the irregular schedule and lack of attendance, many people have expressed disappointment. With that our school tries to have promotions to increase attendance, like students that wear a certain color get in free, or they highlight big events to have students support fellow students, like hitting 1000 career points. This seems to help with the spirit, as more students attend these promoted events.
These promotions will likely continue, and even though students have other activities such as work, homework, and family responsibilities, we still have students who will show up and support our various teams. Maybe we can hope for a large crowd and increase in spirit this Friday night against Mt. Healthy as it slowly starts to warm up this week.
