Spring Break
Our pep rally manifesto
Letter to the Editor
Issue date: 10/3/08 Section: Viewpoint
We are done with pep rallies at the Joyce Athletic Center (JACC). Sorin College has been invited to be one of six dorms hosting this week's pep rally. We have declined that invitation and will not attend any more home game pep rallies while they are held in the JACC.
Rather than simply bail out, we think the team, the band, and other students deserve to know why we won't be inside the JACC anymore. We also hope to spark a larger movement to return pep rallies to a true student body event.
The JACC pep rally, as it now stands, has long outlived its purpose. The JACC rallies are pedestrian, overly-scripted and devoid of any and all spontaneity. With an endless train of performance troupes, videos and acknowledgements of groups in attendance, JACC rallies are simply a showcase for various members of the Notre Dame family. For a showcase, they are just fine, but for a pep rally, they are downright miserable.
Pep rallies should involve only three groups - the students, the band and the team. They are about this entire student body coming together to send forth a single, barbaric yawp. They are a last chance to remind ourselves, and each other, this is who we are. This is whom we sweat and bleed and play for; this is whom we stand and scream and cheer for. This is what we fight for. Pep rallies need to be stripped of their Disney sugarcoating and returned to their raw essentials: noise, emotion and pandemonium.
For starters, return the rallies to the Stepan Center. Take away the divide between students and players staring back and forth at each other and cram us all together on one floor. No seats. Bring back the smell, the noise and the feel of real, un-tethered spirit. Throw out the scripts and let the student body take over. First come-first served; no tickets. Pep rallies should be of the students, by the students and for the students. This means parents, alumni and outside visitors aren't invited. If they want to come, they're more than welcome - but they'll be one of us, not a polite guest at our show.
Rather than simply bail out, we think the team, the band, and other students deserve to know why we won't be inside the JACC anymore. We also hope to spark a larger movement to return pep rallies to a true student body event.
The JACC pep rally, as it now stands, has long outlived its purpose. The JACC rallies are pedestrian, overly-scripted and devoid of any and all spontaneity. With an endless train of performance troupes, videos and acknowledgements of groups in attendance, JACC rallies are simply a showcase for various members of the Notre Dame family. For a showcase, they are just fine, but for a pep rally, they are downright miserable.
Pep rallies should involve only three groups - the students, the band and the team. They are about this entire student body coming together to send forth a single, barbaric yawp. They are a last chance to remind ourselves, and each other, this is who we are. This is whom we sweat and bleed and play for; this is whom we stand and scream and cheer for. This is what we fight for. Pep rallies need to be stripped of their Disney sugarcoating and returned to their raw essentials: noise, emotion and pandemonium.
For starters, return the rallies to the Stepan Center. Take away the divide between students and players staring back and forth at each other and cram us all together on one floor. No seats. Bring back the smell, the noise and the feel of real, un-tethered spirit. Throw out the scripts and let the student body take over. First come-first served; no tickets. Pep rallies should be of the students, by the students and for the students. This means parents, alumni and outside visitors aren't invited. If they want to come, they're more than welcome - but they'll be one of us, not a polite guest at our show.