Bulldog school spirit changes with time

Bulldog+school+spirit+changes+with+time

Jaime Yaukey and Madana Tyger

As the school years come and go, more students enter and leave Big Spring High School and they take spirit with them or bring spirit with them. A question that always arises is whether our student body has more school spirit than opposing teams, or less school spirit. Some of Big Spring may conclude that Big Spring’s students are and have been lacking school spirit, but others may disagree and comment that the school is doing well with their support.

Randy Jones, graduated Big Spring in 2005 and the head coach of girls’ basketball, believes the students are neutral in their school spirit. Jones said, “We are on our way. I think our collaboration group needs to bring more fun activities, as well as our freshman and sophomores should keep getting passionate so when they’re seniors and juniors our school spirits will be high.” Jones believes that the school spirit at BSHS when she was a student was outstanding. “Our school spirit was awesome! My class was the original goal line girls, and it seemed like our pep rallies were half a day long. Everyone would come together to support, whether friends or not.”

“We need more involvement,” Jones said. “It only takes one person to get things started- a leader is all we need. We just need someone willing to overcome their fears. Since a lot of kids have to work, it limits the time for being able to come and participate in our school spirit.”

Jill Davis, an English teacher at Big Spring for 33 years, agreed that school spirit changes are dependent on the kids having jobs. Davis also believes that when a team is winning, it gains more supporters, and more people want to start attending because it’s exciting. She thinks that BSHS’s basketball team this season had a lot of supporters and spirit in the stands, and that Big Spring will always have more crowds than the opposing team- even at away games. “Our community always has spirit and love for BSHS sport teams. High school athletics are the purest form and nobody gets paid and they play because of the love for the game. It seems like teams didn’t care about winning or losing, they just liked playing the game.” Davis said.

Lydia George and Jordan Yaukey, both graduates of the class of 2013, agreed that the school spirit was high when they were students as well and that everyone participated in the color wars and there were many girls that were open to doing Goal Line Girls. “I’ve only been to a few basketball games recently so I haven’t seen the current school spirit firsthand,” George said, “but I enjoyed the enthusiasm the new bulldog was bringing and I’m aware that Goal Line Girls is still a group supporting football, so that’s good!”

Yaukey, however, thinks our school spirit has gone downhill. “It’s changed a lot,” Yaukey said. “The student section when I was in school was always rowdy and I remember different themes for every basketball game, even away games. The referees would often tell us to quiet down. Now I barely hear a peep out of the home basketball games I’ve attended!” She was vastly disappointed.

Yaukey and George both said they believe the school spirit will start rocketing as soon as students and other sports teams begin to support each other. The two girls also believed that their class had done a great job of supporting each other. “Athletes should be supporting athletes,” Yaukey said. “Students need to go to sporting events to socialize with friends and to support the team, not just show up but actually get involved. As an athlete, it was always so much fun and more encouraging to have fans and friends cheering the team on from the sideline and stands. Plus, it makes for great conversation later on when discussing the games.”

Freshman Bryanna Lehman, who does not know what the spirit was like before she attended, says that she believes that Big Spring High School is lacking spirit currently and the reason is because everyone is a “debby downer” and does not want to participate, and the attitudes of those going to the sporting events to watch isn’t always the right attitude.

“Nobody seems to care until something big happens, like the wrestling team making it to districts. Then once that happens, something big with one of our teams, everyone seems to care but people need to be there from the beginning, not just hop on as soon as something good happens.” Lehman said.