An athlete playing in a high-intensity rivalry game and making a big shot, just for three people in the student section to be on their phones and not paying attention to the game whatsoever, can make that athlete question: Where are the 170 members of the Booster Club?
In recent years, the missing student section at sporting events and other activities has caused an uproar within the community. In an attempt to fix this problem, at the start of the school year, it was announced that all home sporting events would be free for students to encourage more people to attend sporting events. At the recent Sectional games, there were even fan buses taking students to the game on top of their free tickets, which everyone thought would surely help the problem. In reality, it has not fixed anything. We are still having this issue where students are skipping the chance to be fans at after-school events. Why is nothing working?
Our staff wonders the same thing. We recognize the administration has tried to fix the issue but has not made any progress so far. So, we asked our media staff about the issue to better understand the problem and gain better insight into how it might be resolved.
Our first question to the staff: What do you think is the top reason for students not showing up?
From our staff, the majority (28 percent) believed the reason students do not show up was that they have no interest in the sport or activity. A large majority of staff members also believe that the students have no personal transportation back to school or to away games to participate. Aside from these reasons, a small percentage (18%) believe it is because the students are tired, and (11%) believe it is because students have to work. The rest of the staff believe it is either because they are not allowed to go, have plans with friends or family, or have homework.
But could there be a way to entice students to attend events?
The most consistent answer was for more fun chants and activities to be allowed at games, much like other schools. Another popular answer was to give a prize to the best-dressed student or the loudest; prize ideas include gift cards, free concession food, or even Dubs ice cream.
The value of after-school activities is understood by students who participate in those activities, but does that really matter to students not involved?
As a staff, we believe this question is essential because it will give us a good idea of whether or not students even believe it is an issue.
The responses we got from the staff indicate that a large percentage of students feel strongly about this issue. According to the responses, 43 percent of students responded with four stars out of five, indicating that they care about this issue. Only three percent of our staff have one or two stars out of five. A good portion of our staff, (23 percent) put three stars out of five, and 25 percent put all five stars.
Some staff members also believe that the school can only do so much to get people to the games, and, according to some of the stats from our survey, sometimes people just do not have the same interests. But, hopefully, people will consider some of our suggestions and ideas, and attendance will slowly increase throughout the year and in the years to come.