Trojan spirit during basketball games has been at an all-time low. From a cheerleader’s perspective, games aren’t as fun as they were in previous years. Students don’t cheer or yell for the teams as much as they have in the past, and they hardly show up to girls games.Students don’t realize that cheerleaders have certain rules we have to follow. These rules limit us in what we can do during games. For example, cheerleaders can only be on the court during quarter breaks and sixty second time outs. Furthermore, we can’t start crowd cheers while the game is in progress.

Due to our coaches’ rules, we are not allowed to do some cheers that students want us to do, like Truckin’. Some students refuse to cheer along with us or start doing cheers over-top of the ones we have started.  This is discouraging.  The senior cheerleaders remember past years when the crowd worked with us to energize the game and get the spirit up.  We wish the underclassmen could have the same experience. Cheerleaders like to stunt because we think it helps enliven up the game. Stunting is dangerous and challenging. However, some students yell stuff at us while we are stunting, which can be distracting.  Criticizing the cheerleaders makes everyone grumpy. This brings the spirit down. Games would be much more fun if students would actually participate in the cheers the cheerleaders start such as, black and gold chants or cheers like “We Say Atlantic.” Players agree that it gets them pumped up and more excited to play when the gym is loud and our fans are cheering them on.  We wish the seniors in the student section would step up and lead the way!