By Claire Ebbitt, Editor-in-Chief

The Rowdies, as most Reynolds High School students know, are the students who make up the cheering section found at major Demon sporting events. Football, basketball and lacrosse are frequently accompanied by themed nights, such as toga night, beach or neon wear.

The Rowdies, however, frequently lack school spirit and must revise their game plan in order to be supportive of the Demons.

First of all, the Rowdies bring down the other team more than they cheer for the Demons. A distinct feature of the cheering section is chants that degrade the opposing side’s student section. They frequently yell things at the quarterback during a football game or at the referees during a basketball game.

During the last home soccer game against Reagan, I did not sit in the Rowdies section (or, as they would have it, stand for the entire game). From the sidelines, it was apparent that the student section was not doing its job. Instead of being helpfully supportive, they were telling the freshmen to “go back to middle school” and for several players to “get a haircut.” This became annoying after about five minutes. The Rowdies missed the overall point. If the freshman was a member of the varsity soccer team, he was most likely a skilled player, not someone to be made fun of.

Another instance in the first half of this particular soccer game occurred when the Reagan side began to cheer. Their fans were not great in number, but they had more stamina than Reynolds. Two girls starting chanting, “I believe that we will win,” to which the Rowdies responded with laughter. This prompted everyone on the Reynolds side to laugh, but when Reagan actually won, the Raiders had the last laugh and the Rowdies just looked bad.

Perhaps if the Rowdies had been more positive, the Demon soccer players would have been more encouraged. In the second half, the Rowdies were greeted by Principal Pat Olsen, who informed them to actually cheer for Reynolds. This had a slight effect, but there were still no coordinated cheers for the Demons.

The football games are just as bad.  During a particularly boring game when Reynolds was losing badly, all of the senior Rowdies left, leaving the underclassmen to stand in the front, which is a rare occurrence. Yet when the seniors are actually there, they put more energy into yelling at the underclassmen. At some games, seniors even ripped off the shirts of freshmen.

I do not know how this was overlooked by administrators, but it is not an acceptable form of supporting the Demons. There are frequent attempts to tell the freshmen to “move back,” and at the game I attended, someone got pulled aside by an assistant principal because she was cursing too much. This also shows how unsupportive the Rowdies really are: If they put half as much effort into actually cheering as they do yelling at the freshmen, the Rowdies would be an effective cheering section.

More evidence that the Rowdies lack spirit is their faithful attendance to the men’s varsity games and low attendance for the women’s teams. They hardly ever cheer for the women’s basketball team, for instance. If you are going to pay $5 for a ticket, why wouldn’t you arrive at 6 p.m. to add additional voices to cheer on the Demon women?

Lastly, for a school of about 1,700 students, the Rowdies section is usually very small and not very diverse. Perhaps if the Rowdies were not obnoxious most of the time, there would be more enthusiastic attempts to stand and cheer with them. No one else will bother to join because they seem like an exclusive club. This leads to poor school spirit and a lack of student participation.

This is just a pathetic excuse for a cheering section. Everything the Rowdies do is extremely infuriating; if I go to a game, I want to support the black-and-gold side, not scream at the other team’s players. For the Rowdies to indeed be a student cheering section, they have to start supporting Reynolds first.