It was a tweet by senior athlete, Adrea Arthofer, that brought to everyone’s attention at Pleasant Valley High School to how bad our student section is. The only sport PV students have historically shown to care about is football and this needs to change.
It’s typical at every high school or college that girls’ sports get less of a crowd than boys. Pleasant Valley should take initiative to break the ‘norm’ and start supporting not just one, but all sports.
Student section leader, Kara Neuhaus, said, “I think we definitely need more support in all sports whether that be football, volleyball, swimming, cross country, golf, or any of the upcoming sports. In my opinion, it starts with seniors showing up to events and encouraging other grades to join.”
The tweet by Arthofer called out how bad the student attendance was at a big Mississippi Athletic Conference (MAC) volleyball game. The tweet stated, “By no means am I saying that student sections win games, but they do help.” This created a lot of controversy on Twitter between the volleyball team and the students at PV.
Even though Arthofer got a lot of negative replies, she felt that something needed to be said. “I felt that I needed to address the issue with our student section when it got to the point when there was a noticeable difference at our home games, and that smaller, further away crowds were bringing a bigger and more excited fan base than us. I also think it’s an important issue to bring up because it makes our school look bad,” Arthofer stated.
Pleasant Valley has had great athletic success, especially in the past couple of years, but that still doesn’t get students excited to support their school. The football team hasn’t won a state championship since 1985, but boys cross country, softball, and girls tennis all won a state championship in 2017. Yet, football continues to get bigger student support than all these other more successful teams.
Improving the student section starts with simply just getting students to show up. “Primarily I think it’s attendance, just showing up and supporting your classmates goes a long way,” Neuhaus explained.
