EDITOR:
As an avid sports enthusiast, I was taught that your job as a fan is to cheer as loud as you can to support your team. When our Douglas football team played the biggest game of their season against their heated rival, Carson, our students were ready to cheer our team to victory. After Carson took a considerable lead, the students were doing our part by cheering as loud and proud as we could, and in order to do this we had to stand. The other Douglas fans were not pleased with the excessive cheering and standing, so the students were forced to vacate the stands in order for the other fans to watch the game in peace. Does this seem right?
As a member of the raucous Douglas student body, I was awestruck and extremely disappointed in my fellow Douglas fans. These games are about the football players and the school they represent; therefore, about the student body, too. Carson's fans stood the entire game, rooting on their team, and I truly believe that all of their overpowering energy helped inspire their team throughout the game.
I have been to every football game this year, along with many other students, and as a senior I wanted to make the last regular season high school football game of my life very special. After the other Douglas fans disapproved of our standing and cheering, we ended up sitting on a rail in the corner of the field where one end zone was not visible. We continued to cheer for our team there, but it was to no avail as the players could not hear us.
A friend on the football team told me he could hear our cheering in the beginning of the game from the sidelines, but that sound dissipated once the students were relocated. I believe if you hear people chanting for you, it will empower you to give your all in the face of adversity - a big deficit, in this case. I am not blaming the football team's loss on this situation, but I know that they would have had a better chance to come back if our students would have been able to cheer on their team from our original place in the stands. I can understand that people may not want to stand for an entire football game, but I cannot understand how a football game can be fun if you just sit in silence.
I will always remember the last regular season high school football game I went to, but only because of my utter disappointment of some Douglas fans. I hope this does not come off as disrespectful because I only wanted to voice my frustration that I felt that night, and hopefully change some fan's minds about the purpose of a football game and the duties of fans. I will still go to every playoff game the Douglas boys make it to this year, and no matter what, I will be cheering and standing to root on my team because it not only is my job, it makes the games enjoyable and it helps the boys we go to watch play to their full potential. Go Douglas.
Ali Murray
Gardnerville
