The Bob Jones Student Section is not reaching its potential. Student-athletes like Chandler Porter, Kyan Brown, Erin Chambliss, and Faith Clader shared their opinions about how the student section could be improved. Basketball players believe that if the basketball games were better attended, they would win more games. Unfortunately, a recent survey revealed that students simply do not want to attend.

Clader said, “We should have pep rallies for basketball games. There should be a fair chance for all of the teams to have pep rallies, at least at kick off.”

75% of students in this survey say that they are not excited about going to basketball games because we don’t have pep rallies for them.

Tom Runnion, a principal and our athletic director, shared that if there is a significant enough demand for pep rallies for sports other than football, then “we, as an administration, should look at [the possibility].”

Runnion tweeted, “Proud of @Bobjoneshoops with our 56-43 win over Huntsville tonight.  It’s now officially JC week.  We need a HUGE @BobJonesHigh student section at JC [Thursday] night!!” on Tuesday night in regard to his interest in a large crowd for our rival game.

Principal Sylvia Lambert said, “We need more. We need more people, we need more energy, and we need more fun.” She hopes that the students will come together to make the crowd at the James Clemens game on Thursday as big as possible.

Girls’ basketball receives even less attention than the boys games do with most people arriving in the 4th quarter of the Varsity Girls game. Sophomore basketball player Deja Guinn said, “Nobody likes to watch girls sports, anyways. Girls are not physically dominant, so it’s not interesting to watch.” Attendance at Junior Varsity games is even worse.

In a previous Patriot Pages article, “Are We Flexing our School Spirit for the Gram rather than at the Games?”, Girls Basketball Coach Andre Reynolds expressed disappointment in students because they only showed up for regional or rival games. Reynolds carries this opinion through this season, saying that “the students still aren’t showing up.”

Bob Jones Basketball Cheerleaders have a similar opinion. According to senior basketball cheerleader Nadia Holmes, the collective view of the cheerleaders is that the student section is lacking.

Maaike Priest, another senior cheerleader, said, “The student body as a whole lacks school spirit.”

How can we get students to games? “If we played good songs and we were swag surfing, I would go to the game even if I didn’t watch the game,” said senior Kiara Gunn. “I would want to be in a pep band if we had a pep band,” said senior Reed Player.

As a school that prides itself on the spirit that the students exert, the amount of people that have been coming to basketball games has been very disappointing. The fact that a student could even bring herself to say that she feels that the student body of Bob Jones lacks school spirit shows that we need to step it up.

We are the Patriots. We can do better than this.