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Amplifying The Spirit

Ivonne S.

 |  Sep 25, 2017

Amplifying the Spirit

Student organizations work together towards a new  outlook on school spirit

By: Ivonne Sanchez

Cheering throughout the game, getting the spectators excited and trying to coordinate with other groups to get the best reaction, Superfans, Cheer,  Marching Band, and Poms dancers aim to get the student section “rowdier” than ever before at every football game this season.

Now an official school club  established last year, Superfans are a spirit club trying to build support from the student body in an effort to make everyone feel included at the games. “It’s not supposed to be an exclusive thing. We want freshmen, we want sophomores, we want juniors, and we want seniors — anybody who can come to the games,” senior Superfan Catherine Johnson said.

As Superfan leader senior Joshua Wastyn explained, cheers would be extremely hard to coordinate without the Superfans. “There wouldn’t be as much organization with cheers and telling people to get loud without the Superfans at the football games,” he described.

One strategy Superfans have tried is to focus on upperclassmen being an example for the rest of the fans. “When upperclassmen participate, it makes other underclassmen participate too,” Johnson said.

As explained by senior drum major Corinne Bellot, the job of the Superfans, Marching Band, Cheer, and Poms is to make school spirit contagious. “I haven’t met a single person who doesn’t know the fight song; even I know it and I don’t sing it — I normally play it,”  Bellot said.

In the past, all four groups have operated independently of each other, but under new officers and leadership, all hope to improve through increased communication. “I think that this is perfect. Last year the groups wound up getting upset at each other because of the lack of organization. This year I know we’ll do better with less conflicting cheers,” Wastyn said.

Improvements were already seen at games this season.“It was so much better! When we would do cheers, it was coordinated with Superfans, and drumline would play their cadences when Cheer was doing choreography for it,” senior cheerleading captain Jelena Pejovic said.

“The entire band, Cheer, and Superfans are trying to coordinate cheers to some of the standard tunes we play such as ‘Iron Man’ or ‘Seven Nation Army,’” Bellot said. “Hopefully this will present a united front during football games and create an even more intimidating fan section to cheer on our Warriors. Of course, it also just creates an exciting atmosphere for all fans to participate in.”

Maine West has always relied heavily on student initiative to make a difference. “When the girls basketball team was losing in the Super Sectionals, fans didn’t really know what to do. That was when a person from the crowd started to sing the Maine West fight song and then everybody joined in,” Johnson said.

Now, those many individual efforts are being unified. “I love it. I think it’s so great. I think this is really tying together what it means to be a Warrior,”  Pejovic said.