I’ll admit I haven’t been the best Bearcats fan this year, and I’m not at all the games, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know a little something about school spirit. During the fall, I watched as some of the students dressed up in theme for the football games but there was no leader or director if you will to get the crowd going.

During my years at Deerfield, we became really popular for our overwhelming student section and our themes. We designed an Instagram solely dedicated to the “Bleacher Creatures.” Our school mascot was the knight, so in turn we were creatures of the knight. It varied from white out to tacky tourist, ugly sweaters and everything in between.

Teams were genuinely scared to face our student section. Whenever the opposing team went to do a free throw, we would all hold up newspapers over our face and pretend we had better things to look at, if that didn’t work we would scream “You can’t do that!” and all stomp our feet. What really bothered them was our cheer, lead by our student pep squad director.

“Which side is the winning team? Our side is the winning team! Which side is the losing team? That side is the losing team! Winning team, losing team, winning team, losing team YAHHH!!!!”

It got so animated and so loud the Albany news came to film and interview us. We never wanted to let our boys down, and if that meant distracting the other team then that’s what we would do.

A couple times we finally got other schools to compete against our student section. They would find our Instagram and see what we were going to wear and then try to copy us to get us off our game, but little did they know that was only a decoy for our real outfits. We still came out and surprised them, just as we always do.

I fully believe a fan base is the key to a successful season. Two years after I graduated, the bleacher creatures took it up a notch and for the state championship; they all got a tshirt designed with our basketball coach’s head on it. Our basketball coach, for lack of better words is iconic. He has a blond perm, tan skin and a voice that can instill the fear of God in you.

Everyone wore the shirt, the parents, the pep squad even the cheerleaders. Do you know that night they won state. The team doesn’t’ begin and end with the players, a team is everyone who participates in making that game a success.

The Bleacher creatures helped make the basketball team a success, the pep squad director even got to cut a piece of the net that night.

I think the Lady Cats have the potential to make it to state, and when they do I want to see all of BHS like I’ve never seen them before. I want to see cheers from more than just the cheerleaders, I want to see costumes, I want to see posters. I want to see it all. Truthfully, I want this to be like a scene from “Bring it On” but instead of the cheerleaders, I want it to be the student section.

So BHS, bring it on and let me see my fellow bleacher creatures!