By Ava Rodriguez
What efforts go into making the Benicia Panther football games everything they are, and why should the community come out to support Benicia High?
First of all, our Panther football team deserves all of the support they can get: they put in hours of time and hard work over their entire summer vacation. Senior Cairo Decatur states, “Over the summer, all of us put a lot of time into football, we were putting in hard work with the team Monday through Friday. We had practice, speed and strength conditioning, and informational meetings.”
After many long weeks of balancing schoolwork and football, we are now counting down the minutes every Friday when it’s time to step onto the field. This team does what they’re passionate about and what they’ve put so much time and effort into. Our Panther football team exudes discipline, drive, and perseverance, and they show us that in every game they play.
Meanwhile, our Panther cheerleaders are on the sidelines at every game, not only to cheer on our amazing Panther football team, but putting their hard work to use as well. When asked to describe the time and effort our cheerleaders put in, Senior Madison Kirkpatrick says, “As a team, we spend hours practicing each week learning our chants for the sidelines, our stunts, and routines we perform during halftime.” All of our BHS cheerleaders deserve our community’s support for all of the support and spirit they show for our school.
Our phenomenal competition winning BHS band also contributes significantly to crafting the atmosphere at the football games. During the games, the band is in the bleachers performing for hours from the beginning of the games up until the very end of the game. Senior, Michael Altera, states, “We take multiple days after school to learn the music we play during the games. We work our hardest to sound our best, and all of us put in a lot of effort.” As our BHS band continues to perform at every home football game, playing the music they spent so much time during the week perfecting, they deserve the support of the community as much as all of the other students.
One more group that works very hard to make our football games enjoyable is our BHS Leadership class. Leadership promotes the football games every week through social media, preparing the student section, and they keep the crowd engaged in the game. Senior Carlos Solla expresses, “We work a lot with school spirit. We set up the Panther before every game, we make posters for the games, and we come up with and promote all of the themes of our home games.” The leadership students at BHS play such an important role by organizing events, boosting our school spirit, and helping viewers have a positive experience.
Many of our BHS students spend countless hours preparing for our Panther football games, whether it’s during physical practice, learning sheet music, or brainstorming ideas to promote school spirit, so come out and support our Benicia Panthers this school year!
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