As a Blaine High School student I take pride in playing sports and contributing to our schools activities. This is a great school with lots of opportunities to be great. With all of our sports, we seem to win a great majority and now our basketball team has been incredible and we are going to state to play in the target center. I’m sure many college scouts will be there to witness who might have a chance to be very good.

I’ve something peculiar however, and I’ve noticed it since my first pep fest and it’s that a lot of people don’t go and rather stay in the lunchroom. I always asked my why? I think most of us relish the idea of seeing others be great at something, we can relate this to Michael Jordan and that Chicago bulls team in the 90s. We thoroughly enjoyed watching them take 6 NBA titles. Greatness does not come often and when it does, no matter if you like sports or not you should feel somewhat prepared to support. You only have one life, you only get to go to school once.

As I watched them, slumped over on the lunch tables, ready to sleep. I noticed that hardly any of them had Blaine gear on. With such a special day you would think that they could at least wear something to support the team as they take the court in what could potentially be their last basketball game. To them it could be a form of respect.

If I had to guess how many skippers there was, then I would have to go with at least 200 students combining the cafeteria and the common. That’s a lot of people that could otherwise be in the pep fest cheering and taking part in the excitement of how our team could win and take state and go down in Bengal history as champions of Minnesota. These players could potentially be seen in the NBA someday and I think that is pretty special.

You can walk down the hallways and see words on the walls painted in blue letters, often mentioning “pride” and how great the students of Blaine High School are. When I see these students in the cafeteria skipping the pep fest it makes me wonder: Are these words true? And the only answer I can think of is that they are mostly true because the majority of students go to the pep fest, wear Blaine gear, support our schools sports teams, and walk those halls and live by that pride mentality. But one question I still have is why doesn’t every student go to the pep fest, and wear Blaine gear, support our schools sports teams, and walk down those halls with the same pride mentality as most of us do? Do they think they’re rebels? Do they think that somehow not supporting the school that gives them so much, makes them cool? And I can’t figure out the answer…

When I ask some of them why they didn’t go, some of the responses are “my back hurts, so I can’t sit up for that long”. “I’d rather not hear the cheering and yelling”. And for the freshman skippers “I don’t want to be booed at”. These were some of the reasons why, but I just don’t get why you wouldn’t support our schools activities, there’s a certain pride and respect we should all carry as Blaine Bengals. Supporting the school is what helps with showing that pride and respect.