Steinbrenner High School kicked off its homecoming festivities on Friday, October 22nd with a pep rally. Pep rallies are used for getting students and fans excited before a sports event and encouraging the team to win. In this case it was used to hype up the students for the homecoming game against Chamberlin High School.
The rally was comprised of sports teams recapping their seasons, a performance of class skits, reciting of class chants, and a game of red light, green light.
The event was hosted in the stadium, where the students were organized by grade. After the students had been seated, the various sports teams began to review their accomplishments of the season. Most notably of these announcements would be Steinbrenner’s varsity volleyball team making it into district championships.
After the sports segment of the rally came the class skits. Each grade had selected people to work on a rendition of Steinbrenner defeating Chamberlin. The freshman, graduating class of 2025, performed a skit telling of an epic battle between the two schools, complete with lots of faux punching and some very skilled drop kicks. The sophomore class then performed a similar skit, this time complete with a mash-up of Taylor Swift songs.
Continually, the juniors preformed a skit that followed the concept of the Hunger Games where are the players, which were Steinbrenner Warriors and Chamberlin Chiefs, had to fight to stay “alive”. Ultimately, the battle ended with Steinbrenner being victorious. As expected, this skit was met with much enthusiasm, and the stands roared. The senior class, who are due to graduate 2022, used the recently popular Netflix show called Squid Games as a model for their skit. Like the junior’s idea, the seniors acted out as both Steinbrenner and Chamberlin players and performed the deadly scene of red light, green light. After the Steinbrenner players had one, the skit continued to depict Steinbrenner scoring a touchdown and winning the homecoming game.
The skits had raised the energy level of the crowd, and the class chants were guaranteed to bring the excitement level even higher. At games, it is up to the cheerleaders to get the crowds engaged, hence the “cheer” in their name, and at the pep rally this was no different. The different members of the cheer squad went to stand in front of the grade level they were in, and help their section practice the chants.
Once every grade had learned their chant, a competition began to see who could say it the loudest. Beginning with the freshman class, the stadium listened to the very weak sound of chanting. After that performance, the sophomores had it easy, they shouted loud and proud and earned a high-ranking spot.
Junior classmen cheered and shouted their chant with so much pride you could practically see the school spirit radiating off of them. This pride led to their inevitable win in the competition. However, that is not to say that the seniors were not loud, they were, they were just not as loud as the juniors.
As the rally neared toward an end, the officiators of the event had one last spirit inducing game up their sleeve. Calling upon volunteers from each grade, the event ended with an intense game of red light, green light.
The pep rally then ended, leaving students to get ready for the football game. The fact that Steinbrenner won the homecoming game and beat Chamberlin is evidence that the rally was successful in its moral boosting efforts.
Lorelei Woodward// Opinion Editor
