From
the Features Editor
A
not so peppy pep rally
By Jennifer Palmberg
The Collegian
I came to Fresno State in 2001
as a student-athlete because I was under the impression that Fresno State
was an athletics-loving campus. Boy, was I ever wrong.
Fresno State isn’t an athletics-loving campus it’s a football-loving
campus and people only seem to care in the hours during and immediately
surrounding the game. Take yesterday’s pep rally for example. Hardly
anyone was there.
There were about 40 students in the “pit” and most of them
were there having lunch not waiting for the pep rally. Another 40 stood
cautiously above the “pit” looking down like they were embarrassed
to be seen at the event. The actual rally proved to be a wash.
Four coaches from three teams showed up to get students pumped and none
of them were successful. The women’s volleyball coach kicked off
the coaches’ pep talks and maybe 20 people applauded him when he
was introduced.
He proceeded to talk about how hard the volleyball team has been working
and how he hopes students will come to support the team. Then he went
into some trivia questions. His first question was, “who is the
Fresno State women’s volleyball team playing against tonight?”
Not a single person could answer that question. Half of the people there
looked as though they had ignored the question entirely and a few looked
as though they were shocked to learn we had a women’s volleyball
team. The answer to his question, by the way, is New Mexico State.
I always knew this campus favored football and men’s basketball
over all other sports, but the fact that in a crowd of about 80 people
no one even seemed to be aware the women’s volleyball team was playing
at all was appalling.
Next came the men’s wrestling coach, well, it was supposed to be
the wrestling coach, but one of the assistant coaches had to stand in
for him because he never showed up. I’m sure he had his reasons,
unexpected things do pop up. But I still think it was rather depressing
to have a pep rally that only represented three sports and one of the
coaches didn’t even show up.
To make matters worse, the Fresno State cheerleading team (and when I
say team I actually mean the five of them standing there) threw gifts
into a crowd that was only partially paying attention and actually hit
people in the face and back of the head with free gifts.
The hand-towels, antenna balls and highlighters didn’t do much damage,
but the individually wrapped Kellogg’s Rice Krispies Treats were
hitting people pretty hard. One young lady working on homework had a treat
torpedo into her head by a female cheerleader who looked like she threw
it at her intentionally. The cheerleader did apologize though, which was
the only nice thing she could have done.
To wrap up the pep rally, two of 13 football coaches came to the event
to give pep talks (neither one was Pat Hill) and even they didn’t
get a very warm welcome or involved reaction from the crowd. It was as
if the students weren’t interested unless there were gifts involved.
The event was supposed to end with the microphone being passed to the
football players who were watching from above the pit, but as soon as
it was announced they were to come take the microphone they turned and
slithered away making the announcer cover for them by saying they probably
had class or something to go to.
To top it off, the rally lasted barely over a half hour and Timeout, who
I was told would be there, never showed up.
Yes, the pep rally seemed to be poorly planned, but it’s the thought
that counts and nobody seemed to care. Most of those who were paying attention
were there for the free gifts.
It’s Homecoming Week people, is it really that difficult to show
your school spirit for one week? And how about taking your blinders off
and taking a look at some of the other programs and sports activities
Fresno State has to offer. If you loosen up and try new things you might
end up enjoying yourself.
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