Homecoming may be over, but class competition carries on

Flash back to November 4.  A sea of blue and white screams from the bleachers of Tropical Park.  A Palmetto football player tenses and prepares to block the Killian lineman.  He turns towards the stands, expecting to hear the roar of “Go Panthers!” Instead, he is met with a combination of “One one, we run!” and “One two, that’s who!” a product of the intense class competition getting out of hand.

The Panther football team united its front against Killian, beating the Cougars 34-19 and retaining the coveted Cat Trophy.  The Panther fans, on the other hand, were another matter. Students remarked that they forgot there was even a football game going on, and seemed surprised when they finally glanced over at the scoreboard to see that their team had gained the lead.  Not even the cheerleaders could rouse the crowd into a round of “Blue and white!”  It seemed that the students were too busy with their class loyalties to notice their school murdering its archrival.

“I was standing on the field, hearing things like ‘Go home juniors’ and getting really upset,” Activities Director Angela Felipe-Lima said, “Killian was about to score a touchdown and the students didn’t seem to notice or care.”

Class competition is an element of school spirit encouraged by the faculty through homecoming activities, class t-shirts, and pep rally cheers.   However, sometimes students need to subordinate their graduation year pride for the good of the school, and remember that first and foremost they bleed blue and white rather than purple, yellow, orange, or red.

What was a friendly class competition has become an all-out war.  At Panther Prowl, the focus should have been on uniting as a school against its upcoming football foe.  Instead, with their skits, classes spent more time stereotyping one another than poking fun at the Cougars. Class skits were brutal.  Freshmen were stereotyped, and sophomores laughed at. Seniors portrayed juniors in such a way that they were effectively disqualified from the competition.  And a whole point was missed.

The rivalry does not stop there. In classes with multiple grade levels, students make mountains out of the smallest differences between them. The seniors in my science class ridiculed the juniors for having to suffer through the boatload of and practice FCATs. Apparently, the seniors (myself included) forgot that just one year ago, we were lazily bubbling in our interims too.

Although there is nothing the upper three classes like to tease the freshman, their Panther Prowl skit held a great deal of truth. No matter what sports a student plays or what clubs he or she joins, the high school experience is really just a broken record, the same experience repeating. Orientation, the ring ceremony, prom, Grad Night – eventually, most of us will participate in the very same school events and walk away with the same Palmetto history.

Students need to get their priorities straight. They are Panthers first, their grade level second. Rather than scheme about how to mock each other, students should take a moment to remember all the things they have in common.

In the upcoming winter and spring sports seasons, students should realize that their spirited cheers become a cacophony when they do not cheer for the same “team.”  Think of how much louder Panthers might roar if they would just shout for one another rather than at them.