Stand Up and Shout: A Yell Leader Feature

Q: Why do you think a big student section is important to the players?
A: “It really gets them fired up and makes them want to play that much harder for all the students that are there because they want the team to win.”

Senior Nick Mantel

Q: What is one game that sticks out to you from this year?
A: “The first game I went on top of Luke’s shoulders to do the ‘roller coaster’ chant. I thought that was pretty awesome to have about 500 kids do the exact same thing right behind you, it’s pretty fun.”

Q: What is your main goal in leading the games?
A: “Honestly we want to help out as much as we can. The football players already do their part, we kind of have to do our part to make sure that they perform to the best of their abilities.”

Senior Luke Ehly

Q: How do you plan on making the student section different from last year?
A: “We definitely want to get the freshmen incorporated. We just want everyone to be cheering. Last year, a lot of the time the kids in the back weren’t saying anything, and we want to get everyone going.”

Q: If we were losing, what would you guys do to motivate the crowd and players?
A: “A lot of the time it’s harder to cheer when we are crushing teams. What do we have to cheer for? We already won the game. If we’re losing, unless it’s a “we’ve lost” losing, we’re going to be cheering even harder, because it will be fun that it’s a close game, and we’re trying to get back on track.”

Senior George Colby

Q: How would you react if you saw people disappointed?
A: “I feel like once people start getting disinterested, it usu- ally happens when [East is] up by 40, you just kind of have to do a cheer like ‘roller coaster’ where everyone sees everyone doing something so they have to get involved. Or a cheer like ‘Do It,’ that’s a good one because you have to do it if you are afreshman or sophomore. That just encourages them to cheer. The juniors and seniors are fine and always are enthusiastic.”

Senior Andrew Stottle

Q: How do you get people into the game?

A: “I spread the word about the game. During the first game I was kind of nervous about starting chants, but then I realized if you just go for it, then everyone else will start doing what you’re doing.”

Q: How do you come up with new cheers?

A: “We kind of just look at what some col- lege student sections do. They are the ones who have really good cheers and we try to emulate what they do. Sometimes profes- sional soccer teams come up with some re- ally good cheers that we copy too.”

Senior Henry Churchill

Q: How do you plan to get the entire crowd involved?
A: “For some chants we go up to the fresh- men and sophomores to tell them what to do. Some of us stand up in the freshmen section to help them get the message or else no one cheers. If they don’t, then the chants don’t always work out how people want them to.”

Senior Mark Ward

Q: What about your personality makes you a good leader?
A: “I think Luke Haverty’s year he ran the student section really well. He made it really rowdy and we all looked up to that. We all thought that, for all the football guys and basketball guys, we want the student section to be loud and make the game more fun for their experience. I play sports my- self and I want the game to be more fun for [the players] so I try to get everyone riled up. That’s more my personality, I think it’s more fun when everyone is being loud and rowdy.”