No Participation in Winter Spirit Week

In previous years, Ballard has only had a fall spirit week, pep rally, and homecoming. But this year, people in the Ballard community brought up that we don’t celebrate the basketball team like we celebrate the football team and that the theater program is not recognized when the arts kids spend as much time after school as the athletes. 

This year, the school tried to bring attention to winter sports. However, when the school did a winter spirit week, pep rally, and homecoming dance, there was little participation. Reporters from Between the Lines went around during the lunches to ask questions about spirit week, homecoming, and general feelings about basketball versus football.

Out of the 48 students, 17 people knew about the spirit week, only and only 2 actually participated. Many students didn’t hear about the spirit week until halfway through the week. People only really participated on Friday, which was class color day, the day of the pep rally. 

When asked if they would rather go to a basketball game or a football game, a total of 2 of 44 students said they would rather go to a basketball game. Out of the 47 students who were asked if they knew about winter homecoming, 15 of them said they had no idea it was happening. Of the 32 students that did know it was happening, only 2 people said they were planning on going. When students were asked these questions, it became apparent that the reason behind the lack of awareness was little to no advertising. Because of the poor advertising and low ticket sales, the homecoming dance was canceled.

Reporters from Between the Lines decided to ask Mr. Hacker-Kuhn, the advisor in charge of the dance, about the cancellation. “We sold around 75 tickets.” When asked why he thinks there were so few ticket sales, he said, “there just wasn’t enough advertising for it.” He then went on to talk about how other schools were having their dances the same weekend and that schedules are busier in the winter.

Even though Ballard is trying to include winter sports in our school culture, people didn’t seem to think that having the spirit week, pep rally, or the attempted dance made a difference in showcasing the winter activities that are happening at our school.