After spending five grueling days writing notes, typing papers, and listening to lectures, Friday night and the weekend brings a well needed break to any student. However, many students can even still become bored over the weekend.

WCA athletics pose an apparent solution to this by offering numerous sports where students can become fans and cheer on their Cats. However, many of Westminster’s biggest sports could do for an increase in attendance and overall enthusiasm from the stands. While many reasons for this have been batted around, one thing that stands out to me is that being in the stands just isn’t fun enough for me to spend what little free time I have on being in them.

Let’s start by making a comparison between a WCA football game and a St. Louis Rams game. At the typical Rams game, cheers, banners, noisemakers, and your average rowdy behavior are fine and to a degree encouraged. On the other hand, any WCA football game carries with it a plethora of rules and regulations about what can happen in the stands. Whether it is a Westminster policy or a rule put in place by MSHSAA, when these restrict students from being fans, and reduce them to only being spectators there is an obvious problem.

I get it. Rules are put in place to combat the chaos that would be brought upon by teenage fans, but people forget what fans are supposed to be: fanatical. Often times fanatical “fans” have to carry with them a certain air of chaos. That’s what makes being a fan fun. With the restrictions put in place, MSHSAA wants us to be spectators, not fans. They want us to be calm, composed, and supportive individuals. They fail to realize that most high school kids want to be more than these things at a sporting event. True fans are almost never calm; true fans are fanatical. To be honest, what is the point of being a fan if you can’t be a fanatic?

There is no quick  fix to this problem. However, a gradual relaxation of the rules set down can, over time, bring back the kind of spirit I’d have fun showing. If this were to truly happen, the cheering would get louder the games would be more fun to attend and I’d be more willing to provide one more filled seat.