From tennis to cross country and golf, most sports have Instagrams to promote their team spirit and show their team's personality. While students are encouraged to attend games, not everyone can make it to every single game of sports. That's why teams use social media to keep people updated on scores and post information about games.
Last year, the cross country team started an Instagram account with the username of @VarsityXCchickens. Run by seniors Claire Langford and Chloe Swan. During a run at an after- school practice, East alumni Anna Joyce and Langford came up with the idea of the account, naming it after a popular brand of running shorts worn by the athletes — Chicken Legs.
When they first started the account, they each went and followed 10 of their friends, people they knew would follow them back.
The account has now reached 120 followers.
This year, the team aims to focus on post more frequently than last year keeping up with the latest trends, having previously posted random ideas like “camming” their teammates.
“A lot of our content is me just randomly camming people with a caption,” Langford said. “I think our stories are better than our posts.”
They mainly do “camera roll dumps” and post content of them at meets, having fun and not making the account very serious.
They like to do funny poses in their post; whether that's holding someone across two people, snapping a picture right after a race while jumping or biting their trophies and medals as a pose. They also have a post with their team dressed from the 1700s at Lancer Day, and another with one of the teammates holding a real chicken, ironically because their name is “varsity XC chickens.”
“You can definitely tell it's a student-run, but I could talk about [the account] for hours,” Langford said.
The girls’ golf Instagram was created two years ago. This year, it was passed down to seniors Ella Slicker and Georgia Boyd.
The account is always given to seniors; last year it was run by Ingrid Blacketer, typically the most involved and top-performing girls on the team. Slicker was initially given the account but chose Boyd to help her later on.
“I chose [Boyd] because she’s very involved and a very good leader in everything she does,” Slicker said. “It's also nice because we can both make posts and every time she [makes a post], I know they’ll be good.”
The girls’ golf team has two accounts—one run by the athletes and one run by the coaches. They keep the athlete’s account professional while still showing personality by posting funny team videos.
“A lot of people think golf is a very quiet sport and you can't really have fun with it,” Boyd said. “I think we’re going to try and make it fun and be creative with it.”
They post for every match, both JV and varsity golf tournaments, as well as team get-togethers.
The process of making a post usually involves finding a team picture, which then put it into the Canva app to add colorful graphics and designs, making the picture more entertaining. At times, they will also post a funny video or photo at the end of their posts.
To grow the account, the girls all repost the posts and stories on their personal Instagram accounts. They now have 231 followers and hope to grow their account.
The account now has 231 followers.
“I’m really happy with where the account is at now,” Slicker said. “I hope next year the incoming seniors can keep it up.”
The girls tennis team's Instagram was started last year by seniors Catherine Beltrame, Anna Cicero and sophomore Charlotte Walton, called @Smeasttennis. After seeing other sports teams' Instagram accounts, they were inspired and decided to create one for tennis and even convinced their coach, Andrew Gibbs, to log into the account.
Unlike most teams, they have 180 girls on the tennis team, competing in multiple matches every day. This can make posting challenging, but they aim to create a single post on game days that covers all locations and various times that the girls play, and at times, will post winning scores.
Cicero often pulls pictures from media day and puts them into Photoshop or Canva to add text and graphics for the post on game day.
“The hardest part is finding a picture for sure,” Cicero said. “We want to make sure the same people don't get posted over and over again so we will take pictures from media day or the Harbinger pictures, but it's also hard because we have to make sure the people like the pictures that are in it.”
To promote the account, the girls repost the media on their personal Instagrams, they also included the account name at the bottom of a flyer for Lancer Day to help with donations, which attracts many new followers.
The goals for the account this year are to increase the frequency of posts and attract more people to the account.
Although Beltrane, Cicero and Walton try to keep the account more put together, they will also add funny pictures of the girls having fun with their teammates.
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