In the age of social media, it isn’t hard to feel an overwhelming amount of pride for my school. From student section Instagram pages, friendly fire Barstool Twitter feeds, and a phenomenal sports media and sports marketing program, my school sets the standard for gameday production and spirit. 

It wasn’t always that way, though. My school used to be weak in the spirit department. When we lost (and we lost a lot), we lost dirty. Students would leave at halftime, they would cuss out the other team, and there were fights at every game. As passionate as the spirit leaders were, they were disorganized and chants were chaotic.

For schools looking to increase their school spirit, here’s how my school did it. We worked hard. One of our teachers took initiative and created a Twitter for our student section. It’s now the main form of communication for all things spirit. It’s how students find out about themes, ticket information, and the occasional reminder to pick up their trash after games. We have student section leaders who come up with chants, themes, and posters. The spirit stick is passed between the grades, and whoever can scream the loudest at games earns it. 

For uniformity, our school had assemblies at the beginning of the year so students could learn the chants. Now, we are organized with our chants at the games. Our spirit leaders do a great job of hyping not only the students but the team up as well.

My school’s sports media and marketing programs are so essential to games as well. Sports media and KNET (our student broadcast) manage game production such as the live stream, graphics on the score screen, announcing, and running the cameras. Sports marketing works with sponsors, entertainment, and social media. Through their work, people are able to watch our games from all over the country, students who have to work can get updates on the game over social media, and sponsors get their publicity. 

School spirit takes work. It’s not something that happens overnight. Because my school is only ten years old, our first principal had to work hard. Students would wear Liberty (our rival school) gear and didn’t associate with our school. Thanks to his effort, we are able to have a culture of pride. Our football coach was able to pull our team together, and now the football players live by the motto ‘everything matters’. 

There is room to improve, though. The only sports that students show up for are football and basketball (and occasionally volleyball). Liberty North needs to do a better job of showing up for other games. We need to do a better job of going to concerts and tournaments and performances. Spirit isn’t reserved especially for athletic programs. Spirit means supporting every aspect and department of our school, no matter how small. School spirit doesn’t stop when the season ends and it doesn’t stop at the athletic department.