Have you ever realized how bare the AHS gym walls are compared to the other gyms in our conference? What you are seeing  is that we don’t have any state-qualifying or state champion/runner up banners decorating our walls. The other schools in our conference believe that the banners show pride, achievements, and motivate younger players. When our school was built 19 years ago, the administration at that time didn’t want to hang up any banners and no one has changed that since.

The school is currently working with the Booster Club to make a change happen. The Boosters were the ones to decide to bring the issue up again recently. Activities Director Matt Alexander said, “This issue has been brought up many times in the past years, but we are just now pushing to do it.” According to Alexander, any banners that will need to be replaced will be funded by the Booster Club.   

In order to figure out a plan to hang the banners, it needs to be decided how far back the years would go, what banners we currently have, and what type of banners to hang (state qualifying, state champion, state runner-up, etc.), so they know where to draw the line.

High school principal Heather McKay said, “It needs to look classy. Some schools look very cluttered and dirty. I just want it to look good.”

One of the schools in our conference’s organization of the banners has caught the eye of the administration, though. Carroll Kuemper organizes their banners in a way that the banners rotate. Kuemper Activities Director Tim Fitzpatrick said, “We put up any state banners for about 5-6 years, so that class that earned them sees them, especially if they come back for homecoming the following year.  As we add more banners, we take down the older ones and put them safely away.”

Once these banners are put away, the years are put onto other banners organized by sport that shows all of the years they qualified, got runner-up, or won State. Alexander said, “I like that idea. Maybe we could take that and make our own version.”

There really aren’t any objections to putting up the State banners. It’s “just a matter of getting to the point where we can,”  meaning finding a way to organize them properly. A lot of research goes into hanging the banners up. A plan for each sport section needs to be decided for how it should be organized, along with State qualifying, and State champion/runner-up.

As of now, there is no certain timeline to get the banners hanging up, but Booster Club member Sheila Svoboda said, “I would like to see them up as soon as possible.”