We're Almost 2000 Students Strong, So WHERE Is The School Spirit?

Gooood morning, Needham High! I have a question for you: When did it become uncool to care?

Let me clarify that question. When you think of high school, a series of images first comes to mind: Friday night lights, school dances, spirit weeks, and the feeling of being a part of something. At a school of nearly 2000 people, one would think that school spirit comes with the package. As I was disappointed to learn upon entering Needham High last year, that assumption is far from the truth.

To say the least, homecoming made me want to do just that: go home. There were far fewer people than I expected and most of the people who were there just weren’t acting like they wanted to be. While my group of friends, along with a few others, tried to get involved by singing along and dancing, the music was unfamiliar and people continued to float off of the tennis courts and into the gym.

Student Council undoubtedly worked extremely hard on homecoming, so how could homecoming have been better? While I think that a lot can be said for better music and people staying on the tennis courts, where the actual dance happens, there are also more concrete ways to get people involved. In 2021, there was a spirit week leading up to homecoming, which contributed to the school getting more excited for the event and was able to spread awareness about it happening. While spirit weeks can be difficult to participate in due to not everyone having the same materials for each theme, spirit days don’t have to be complicated to succeed (and sometimes even the complicated spirit days work—does anyone else remember when Ross Lynch liked the post on the bikers vs. surfers spirit day post?). Although it is too late to redo a spirit week leading up to homecoming, it’s not too late for another spirit week or some spirit days throughout the year! Some suggestions for easy spirit days could include solid colors, Boston teams, Needham gear, twin day, or anything but a bag day.

Sophomore Sofía Martinez, who moved to Needham High mid-last year, thinks that NHS should start holding pep rallies, which have not happened since the 2019-2020 school year due to COVID-19. At her old school, she says, “There were competitions between the freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior classes. People would be randomly called up to do stuff like tricycle races and pie eating contests; they were just really fun. Needham should have pep rallies because there is practically no school spirit, and it doesn’t really seem like there’s a great sense of community. I know that’s cheesy but it’s true.”

And maybe a little cheesiness is what we need at Needham High. What if we all stopped caring so much about what people think of us and tried to make the most of the high school experience?

I talked to Baxter Jennings, a senior and football player at Marblehead High School about school spirit. He says that getting people interested is the most important (but also the hardest) part of school spirit. However, MHS has a packed student section every night. Why is this? Baxter believes that “it’s the idea that high school is the last years with all your best friends when you’ll be the closest, so dressing up and going out and enjoying a game or just putting something fun together should be enjoyed. That’s how I’ve looked at high school, but maybe not everyone likes to go out. Which is silly…Get out of your comfort zone. Build some confidence and do something new. Being comfortable in general is living life on cruise control. You have to be uncomfortable. That’s how you remember things. The stuff that made you go, ‘damn that was hard.’ Basically the stuff that makes you think, as stupid as that sounds. Make people reconsider their social life and the way they carry themselves through your high school and how they can make it enjoyable and what you could do to add to it being memorable.”

Baxter’s sister, a junior at MHS, agrees. As someone who attends the Friday night games as opposed to playing them, she thinks “A big part of it is being with your friends in the stands and getting to look forward to something every single Friday…it also helps to understand the sport you’re going to watch because a lot of people don’t understand football, but once I got the game it was so much more entertaining to watch. I’ve gotten much closer with friends just from the general basis of always having something to do on a Friday night. My friends and I go to all of the team’s games just to get out of the constant school-homework-bed cycle!! It’s a basic hour (ish) activity that’s entertaining, basically free and never requires massive planning! High schoolers like things simple and school spirit isn’t complicated.”

But how do NHS students feel? According to sophomore Alana Zaiger, “In general, schoolwide spirit and spirit activities, we are severely lacking. However, I do cross country and we do psychs and I think that we are a very spirited team and I think in general most teams at the high school are pretty spirited, but I think Needham High School has got to do something about school spirit. I think homecoming was completely irrelevant, as we ignored a lot of traditional homecoming activities like spirit week and a football game. It was bad.”

Says sophomore Max Scott, the student advisor to the school committee, “There’s not a lot of value in homecoming right now for sophomores, juniors, and seniors; it’s mostly for the ninth graders. It’s indispensable as a first impression of how Needham can really come together, since the ninth graders have no other frame of reference. But it should be changed to be as much fun for all the other grades.”

Class of 2023 Student Council President Kathleen Grady states that, “I think there’s a pretty long history of Needham having little spirit. For events that are written into tradition like Powderpuff or Field Day people get more excited, but it’s definitely hard for newer ideas to gain traction. With students that are really dedicated to school work and extracurriculars, it’s not that surprising that things that can be written off as silly don’t get prioritized. Also for field day, people all leaving actually happens every year, but this year people stayed pretty long then all left at lunch, so it was more tangible than the usual trickle-out. I think individuals just being receptive to a little spirit can go a long way in changing a culture. As a student council, I think it’s just important to celebrate little victories and continue to have events for the students that do appreciate them.”

I couldn’t agree with Kathleen more. Student council has to do their part, and they have been trying, through events like homecoming and field day, but the general school population must also do their part to create a more spirited culture at school.

While I disagree with the sentiment “high school is the best four years of your life,” because I sincerely hope that none of us peak as teenagers, I do think that there is a reason for that phrase. High school is a time of growing and learning, and what better way to experience that than as a part of a close-knit community of friends and peers? So let me rephrase my earlier statement: Hey, Needham High! What if we made it cool to care?