For the first time in years, the energy inside the Schluntz Gymnasium wasn’t for a game. On a typical Wednesday afternoon, students filed into the gym, one by one, anticipating the return of a traditional school event: the pep rally.
In previous years, students attended the pep rally on the last day before Thanksgiving break, before the annual Powerpuff girls flag football game. However, this year the event was held on Oct. 29 and shared no resemblance to previous years. This time, it focused primarily on building community through celebrating athletes and hyping up students for the upcoming fall sports playoffs. One by one, fall captains presented their teams’ respective seasons, and then students competed against one another for prizes in different games and challenges.
According to Athletic Director Kyle Williams, the concept of this year’s pep rally introduced a completely reimagined approach aimed at camaraderie.
“[The pep rally] is a different event than the event we ran, both in timing and concept,” Williams said. “We want to do more community building, strengthen the ties between academics and athletics and also let student athletes tell their success stories.”
Assistant Athletic Director Amanda Mortelette said she drew on experiences from previous schools she had worked at when shaping the new event.
“When I was at Newton, we started doing pep rallies this way, and I saw the value of it and I saw students have a lot of fun with it,” Mortelette said. “There was a lot of community building, students supporting each other and getting hyped for the postseason.”
Athletic trainer Shelby McDavid also played a critical role in planning the pep rally. According to McDavid, who also came from a school with pep rallies, this event was important since most students had never experienced anything like it.
“So many athletes ask me, ‘What is a pep rally?’” McDavid said. “ [We wanted to create] a really fun event where we could celebrate teams, get kids excited, but also teach kids what a pep rally was because for the most part no one’s ever been to a pep rally.”
The cheerleading team performed throughout the event. Head coach Neva Taylor said while this event wasn’t a change of scenery for her athletes, it was still a good experience.
“It’s nice to be able to show a routine to kids who maybe haven’t gone to a football game or anything like that,” Taylor said.
According to Mortelette, the athletic department plans to make this a seasonal event. She said they hope to make improvements moving forward, including increasing teacher involvement.
“It is really fun when we have a lot of staff participating against the students,” Mortelette said. “Our hope is that we can break down that misconception about things like, ‘You’re just a teacher,’ ‘You’re this, you’re that,’ ‘I’m just a student.’ No, we’re all in this together.”
McDavid said she encourages students to take a more active role in planning future rallies.
“We’re hopefully planning to do this for the winter and the spring as well,” McDavid said. “If someone sees a fun pep rally game, bring it to us, let’s see if it’s something we can do here.”
