Effect Of The Fandom

Your heart drops as you step out of the locker room and glance into what seems to be hundreds of people in outfits matching to a theme, crammed in the bleachers to watch you play the game you love. It makes all the hours in the weight room, Saturday nights staying in and aches and pains after your three hours of practice worth it. It’s the moment you have been waiting for.

It’s game time.

When it comes to high school sports, being able to look into the crowd and spot your friends, family, peers and even teachers cheering their hearts out for you is arguably the best part of a game. It fuels you with energy and motivation to do better for those who support you.

Last year, the seniors were stripped of the high school right of passage to go to games and stand at the front of the student section.r After three years of being shoved to the back of the stands and getting booed for not being loud enough, the time had finally come for them to do the same to the underclassmen. That high school right of passage was taken away with a single board meeting.

That can’t happen again.

We’ve been going to school every day now for over two months with the COVID cases fluctuating constantly and the only protocol being that we have to wear masks indoors. But, the Shawnee Mission School District Board is still determining how many people will be allowed in the visitors/student section at indoor sporting events such as basketball games and swim meets this winter. 

There’s virtually no difference between being a foot away from a classmate at my desk wearing masks and being ten inches away from a classmate in the gym supporting my friends, still in a mask. The level of exposure is almost exactly the same. 

When it comes to concerns with COVID-19, there’s no reason indoor sports shouldn’t be allowed to have full capacity attendance. If it’s ruled that student sections will be limited or not allowed, I believe there will be nothing but backlash from it. It’s not only stealing part of the high school experience from the fans themselves, but also is taking away the support and confidence that the athletes receive, validating their hard work.

Players play the sport because they love the game, but also because they love the atmosphere that’s created while they’re playing. It isn’t right to steal that from yet another senior class of athletes who have worked so hard throughout their high school season to earn the spots that they’re in. 

Football had no limits. Soccer had no limits. Volleyball had no limits. Lacrosse last year had no limits. Why restrict it now? The Lancer Day football game had a full student section of kids standing shoulder to shoulder in the stands, chanting and jumping all over each other, and even the Link Crew dance at the beginning of the year was packed with un-masked students dancing for hours. Yes, the risks of transmitting the COVID-19 virus are higher inside. But studies from the CDC report that wearing a mask can reduce the chance of transmitting the virus by 70% or more. And with majority of East already vaccinated, the likelihood of transmitting COVID-19 is even less likely. In fact, East has only COVID cases since the start of the year. So, to argue that being indoors is more dangerous than something as extreme as Lancer Day is absurd.

Not only does this affect the athletes and their classmates, but also the families of players who have been watching their kids play the sport for as long as they can remember. I know if I was a senior, my parents, siblings, grandparents and cousins would do anything to get to see me play in my last season.

Another variable that adds to the frustration of the potential restriction is that the COVID rates in Johnson County are not going up, they are in fact going down and the vaccination rates are doing nothing but going up day by day. 

So if all of this is happening, then why is the concern for COVID getting worse instead of getting better?

Putting limitations on indoor game attendance would also diminish our school’s spirit as a whole. Nothing brings students together more than a rivalry basketball game against Rockhurst or Shawnee Mission South. Sure, you might get to watch it online or hear all about it the next day from a player, but nothing will match the excitement and school bond of seeing it all go down firsthand.

For three months, there will be no talk in the halls about who’s going to the game and the awaited theme conversation. There will be no rushing the court and celebrating the big win with the team. Instead, our Instagram stories will be cluttered with reposts about the score.

The senior players and all students will walk away from the East wondering about all the memories and laughs that could’ve been made at those games. All we’ll have are memories of what could have been. The past two years of seniors were robbed of a fully normal senior year, so I hope the district won’t take it away from this year’s senior class too.

We should absolutely be allowed to have full spectator capacity at all winter sports. Let us get the high school experience we have been told about from our parents. Stop making this isolating COVID lifestyle normal, because it no longer has to be. 

Let us cheer on our team.