Leadership is screaming for a larger superfan turnout at football games.

This football season, the Bear River student section has struggled to provide the kind of school spirit that Leadership would like to see at sporting events.

“There is a spirit problem happening this year, a lot of people don’t have pride,” said ASB President Amanda Potts, a senior.

Students just aren’t showing up to the superfan section this year.

“I think it’s been the last couple years,” said Activities Director Matt MacDonald.

Mr. MacDonald listed the many students who work the football game in an extracurricular capacity.

“We have FFA kids working the cookhouse, so about 20-25 students are over there,” he said. “This year is one of the biggest cheer teams we’ve had, so that’s about 20-25 girls. The band takes about 20-30 students. That’s 75 students who are at the game, contributing to other events. Plus the football roster of 35.”

According to junior, Mallory Borrego, “football games are more of a social event. I like to walk around and talk to people.”

Borrego also voiced her grievances with the student section.

“Its nice to have people cheering all the time and have spirit but it stinks to be cramped in a really small space,” she said. “You lose your voice because not enough students participate. I know Leadership tries really hard, but some people are too intense. It’s kind of annoying when people take it too seriously. I understand that it’s fun to get into it, but some people are just not as loud as others.”

But Leadership continues their new efforts to get students to cheer for our football team.

“We’ve tried different locations, we’ve tried handing out water bottles, left notes on cars,” said Mr. MacDonald.

Potts also listed Leadership’s attempts to drum up school spirit.

“More advertising and vamping up on social media, trying to put together fun cheers and interactive things to do to get more people to come,” she said. “I think that there’s always more effort to be put in. … There’s always more to do as a class and as individuals.”

“Obviously what we’re doing isn’t working and we have to ask ourselves why aren’t our students interested,” said Mr. MacDonald. “We’re trying more structure in the student section. We made these weatherproof signs to tell the section which cheer. We’re trying to make it more of an event.”

Mr. MacDonald said sometimes the problem isn’t in the section itself, but the communication between Leadership and the student body.

“We’re always trying to improve our communication,” he said. “You have to have a multi-faceted approach. The goal is to keep trying out more things and then send out a survey to the students to find out what works.”

Despite the struggle with the football games, Leadership seems to have hope for basketball season.

“Historically, more people come to basketball games,” said Mr. MacDonald. “I’m really confident we’ll have a good basketball season.”

Potts had a similar view.

“We’re always going to get a better turn out at basketball because all you have to do is sit in stands … and we’ll have the football players,” she said.

Leadership is determined to encourage students to come to the student section.

“I don’t know if school spirit is important, but creating a sense of belonging and community is,” Mr. MacDonald said. “Spirit creates unity in the student body and I think that unity is what is important.”