Every fall, one of the most eventful days that students look forward to is the Homecoming Pep Rally. After a weeklong build-up of school spirit and fun, students at North Point crowd into the football stadium to celebrate the clubs and organizations as well as the Fall athletes. Once the pep rally is over, students are already anticipating how fun the next pep rally will be. However, the next pep rally won’t be until the fall of the next school year. Not the ensuing winter, or the following spring, but 365 days later.
One of the primary goals of a pep rally is to celebrate the accomplishments of the athletic teams a school has to offer. As a former fall athlete, almost nothing can match the excitement, and pride, that is felt while walking on the track with your team in from of your peers. Sadly, Winter and Spring athletes don’t get that same opportunity. Sure, there’s Senior Night, but that is only for the graduating class on the team. Not everybody on one team is going to be a senior, so there will always be some athletes left out in the Senior Night celebrations. It would only be fair for them to get the same opportunities as their fall counterparts to be honored by their classmates for a day.
The question is, why doesn’t North Point have more pep rallies in the school year? Last school year, the administration threw together an impromptu pep rally to celebrate the Boys and Girls Basketball teams for making it to the Maryland State Semi-Finals. It only lasted about 30 minutes, though, and didn’t have the same type of excitement as in the fall. This school year, when our basketball teams repeated as Region 4A East Champions, many students took to Twitter with the same message; “#NPNation should have a pep rally this week.” Surprisingly, the administration didn’t take heed to the hints and suggestions by students, and we were left without one this winter.
I’ve heard of schools in other states having pep rallies as often as once per week. In this county, not only North Point, we have one per year. The obvious reason as to why Fall Sports are guaranteed to have a pep rally is because it ties in with Homecoming night for the number one money making high school sport in America. At many schools across the nation, football is the top sport, usually followed by basketball, and then a mad scramble for the following spots. One would think that at least the winter would get a pep rally as well because basketball is played in the winter, and it is a very popular high school sport. Just like the rest of us winter athletes, though, the basketball team is stuck watching the football team, as well as every other fall sport, grace themselves in front of the student body, knowing that this won’t happen during the winter months.
Pep Rallies are fun times where, for just a few moments, the students in a school don’t have much else to worry about other than cheering for their peers and trying to show the most school spirit. They are also an experience that will always be remembered by students and student-athletes alike. At this point, only fall student-athletes get to experience that pride and satisfaction of being in a pep rally. Hopefully, in the near future, that will change.
