Leeat Elkayam

Staff Writer

Wildcat pride on campus is at an all time low. Students do not come to support fellow students while they play in their blue and white jerseys.

I always hear people complain that they want to go to a more “normal” or “American” school. We now have a tackle football team and a cheer squad. What’s more American than that? The school has done everything in its power to make sure students aren’t missing out on any aspect of the traditional American high school experience. Now it’s the students’ job to bring in the spirit and come to support their friends at games.

Players feel unimportant when their friends seem unaware of how much time and effort they give to the sports they love to play.

“When there aren’t as many people there to come support you, it demoralizes your team spirit and when they are there it makes you want to work harder,” Avia Cohen ’15 said.

When I go to games and see five parents and two students who are siblings to some of the players, it makes me feel bad for the athletes. It looks like their friends feel that their schoolwork is more important than coming to support their classmates. We generally have two nights to do homework. If we know there is a game friends are playing in, we can finish assignments the night before or the night after and go offer support.

Since the Spirit Squad has come into play, the atmosphere at school does not seem changed. For our school to be more of a community, people need to accept the new teams on campus, such as the football team and the Spirit Squad. The football team has had a successful season, but the players still feel as if no one really cares.

“The Spirit Squad is awesome. Doing what they’re doing is not easy. The school spirit process is a slow one, but I have faith it will get there.” Welsh said.

I am a very spirited and loud person, so I joined the Spirit Squad to express my pride in the school and to try and get people as excited as I am about school events. It is disappointing to me that people are still giving the cold shoulder when it comes to after school games.

What’s the big problem with coming to games? Is it Milken’s pressure for perfect grades that lowers the student’s enthusiasm to try and come to games because they have too much homework or they have a big test the next day? Our A day B day schedule enables us to split up the workload so the students don’t feel overwhelmed.

“If there were a big event on one night and teachers would say there was no homework on that night that kids would be more inclined to go to the game,” Jason Welsh ’13 said