The 2023 football season is set to start off with a bang this Friday with a pep rally during advisory.

“The blackout pep rally is being held to celebrate the football game Friday night, and to highlight all of the fall sports that are starting up,” Student Council president, senior Haley Ward said. 

Corresponding with the themes for this year’s football season, the blackout pep rally, as the name implies, revolves around the color black.

“Since the first game is blackout themed, we wanted to keep the school spirit alive by also making our pep rally blackout themed,” cheer captain, senior Malia Willingham said. “We encourage the student body to wear black on that Friday to spread the school spirit!”

Like any event, putting together a pep rally requires collaboration and planning between many electives and organizations, such as Student Council, band, dance, cheer, and various sports.

“We will have performances by cheer, drill team, and band at the pep rally, along with a game including the volleyball team and teachers,” Ward said. “We want to use this pep rally as a time to celebrate all of the fall sports happening right now, so the sports will have a chance to introduce themselves and promote their upcoming games and events.”

Cheer, especially, has been putting in effort to make this pep rally extremely fun.

“My co-captain, Carsyn Bianchin, and I made a really fun pom dance for this pep rally, and taught it to our team,” Willingham said. “We are super excited to show it to everyone and we have been working on perfecting it in class!”

Band has also been practicing their music, both for the pep rally and for football games.

“Band will be playing cadences and stand tunes for the school,” band president, senior Sanjana Vallampati said. “Pep rallies are important to the band because it gets us an opportunity to show off what we can do.”

For Ward, pep rallies can serve as a way to garner support for various electives, especially sports, and celebrate all they do.

“It is super important to have pep rallies to really bring the student body together, and encourage everyone to support our teams on campus,” Ward said. “Pep rallies are a great way to get people excited for the year ahead, and to highlight all of the groups and organizations at the school.”

Beyond highlighting various campus organizations, pep rallies are also about school spirit and strengthening the sense of community between students.

“Pep rallies are important to cheer specifically because we promote school spirit,” Willingham said. “Our jobs are to cheer on our school community and connect our student body, and I think pep rallies do just that!”