Crimson Crew has returned to center field! After consideration of student opinions and outcomes of the past home football games, the Athletic Department has decided to relocate the student section to its original spot on the 50-yard-line.
Friday night football games have been some of the events that attract the most students: more than two hundred squeeze into the student section while another two hundred are in the game or are part of the performances it has to offer. But when the Athletic Department decided to move the student, band, and cheer sections, many students, athletes, coaches, and staff found it to be lacking the exciting atmosphere of prior years and were concerned that the focus was shifted away from the students.
A staff member that recognized this was Advanced Dance and Crimson Crew advisor Jennifer Bedrosian, who had many students communicate their worries to her. “My first and foremost is, it’s always about the kids,” Bedrosian said. “We just need to give [the relocation] a chance, and if it turns out awesome, then that was success. And if it turns out where the kids are feeling a little bit displaced, and find it to be not as fun, then we just shift. We don’t want to lose it, and my worry is that the kids will stop wanting to sit there.”
The relocation was produced by numerous community members including Athletic Director Michael Sauret, parent organizers Al Bowman and Jamie Smith, Bearcats Broadcasting, and the Bearcat Boosters. While no additional reserved seats for Booster members were sold, it cleared up about thirteen rows of main seating for parents and aimed to be like every other school, which has their student section off to the side.
“You know, it provides about triple the space for the students,” Sauret said. “That was a big reason to put the student section there. It has railing, it’s sort of separate, and makes it more of an independent space.”
While the movement was meant to benefit students, the first game showed that it might have done the opposite. Not only did the relocation lower student interaction due to being separated from the action, but the performers in Cheer and Advanced Dance were the most affected, according to many on the squads. With the student body being moved so far to the side and away from the action, their cheers could hardly be heard.
“It wasn’t really helping us as crowd engagers; it’s so much harder to do our job when there isn’t anyone helping cheer us or the team on. The students have more energy,” Varsity Cheer captain Brissia Centeno-Solorio said.
“I know that the intention was really to give a place for just the students where they didn’t have to worry about interacting with adults that were yelling at them to sit,” Bedrosian said. “But because they were so far removed from the halftime, all the performers felt it. As kind as parents are, they’re not loud and rowdy and spirited and fun.”
“The student section felt really removed, especially with not being in front of the cheerleaders–I feel like they’re the ones that lead us in the cheers most of the time, and without that, I didn’t really feel any spirit,” Crimson Crew member senior Divy Emmons said. “We had to make more of an effort to call cheers and stuff. I think people felt weird about it, and it definitely hasn’t been as fun and energetic as before.”
In terms of location, the Marching Band had another perspective on it—they preferred the area they were moved to, and where they still currently are.
“I actually think it worked better in the long run, because we’re in a smaller section, so everyone was a little closer and it went further up rather than to the sides. One of the students even mentioned that they liked being close to the snack bar and the bathrooms,” band director Humberto Cera said.
Before the decision of moving the sections back to their original spots, Sauret admitted that including student opinions is something he would’ve liked to go back and do. “For sure, I should have done that,” Sauret said. “We will be seeking input from the students and from the other partners, including cheer and football, as to if they thought it was successful or not, and if it wasn’t, then certainly we can look at reconfiguring [seating] back to what it was.”
The collective decision to bring the student section back to the center was made just in time for the homecoming game, which occurred on October 11th. However, Crimson Crew, which has significantly shrunk in numbers, calls for more students to attend meetings during Thursday nutritions and making sure to attend the games; having a larger group to call cheers, hold signs, and rally could be a way to recover the Bearcat spirit in the student section.
“I think the spirit during the homecoming game was way better than past games,” junior Jaklyn Woodland, Advanced Dancer and Crimson Crew member, said. “We can see exactly what’s going on now and could cheer louder because we know what we’re cheering for. People just have to get over the awkwardness to have spirit and it’ll be way more fun and engaging.”
