Langley Basketball has already played over half of their regular season games and there have been three away games and five week day games. For those games the Langley crowd has been next to non existent. When there is a crowd, whether it fills the whole stand, like the McLean game, or fills one section of the stands, the chants are generally disjointed, lacking, and/or not very good. This needs to change. 

“I just think that underclassmen are a little too nervous or embarrassed to chant. It just seems that no one in that class really wants to be a leader,” Senior Ian Shaw, a leader of chants, said. It may simply be that people do not understand what the environment of a basketball game is supposed to be like. It could also be that people just think they are too “cool” to participate in the chants, but there is no disgrace in cheering for your school’s sports teams. One of you freshman just needs to step up and take that role of getting your classmates involved. Your class is one of the largest that Langley has seen, so whoever does step up can start something really special. 

“We’ve talked to certain underclassmen and told them to talk to their friends and get into chants, but nobody really listens. Nobody really has any influence on the kids,” Senior Warren Khan, School Vice President and leader of chants, said. Generally, the underclassmen are the worst of the fans at athletic events especially the ones that do not know much about sports. This goes back to the fact that nobody has stepped up and taken the role to get everybody involved from their class. Underclassmen are usually like this because they simply have not developed the passion for Langley that upperclassmen tend to have due to the small amount of time they have been at Langley. 

“Sometimes I will go to weekday games when I don’t have school work, but mostly I don’t because I’m on the junior grind,” Lauren Fhalberg, Junior, said. Most people do not come to weekday games, which is understandable with school work and other requirements. Students also do not have time to waste on commutes to and from sports games, especially with lengthy away game travel times. But all of these reasons to miss games go completely out the window for weekend games, home or away. Instead of binge watching some show on Netflix, do something social and support your Saxons.  

“The spirit has lulled in the past few years, but, in all, I think it’s still there. Especially when you see games against McLean where almost the entire school shows up, you feel like the spirit is alive and well,” Colter Carton, starting Senior on the varsity team, said. Leadership has been working on ideas to help ignite that spirit that students bring to these rivalry games to become present for every weekend game. “We are thinking about bringing all of the kids who dress up for spirit days and do like a best dressed prize. Mostly our prizes have been wristbands and t-shirts, but instead of doing that we are thinking about giving them a pass to get into the game that Friday night for free,” Khan said.  

“I think the difference is that people at Marshall really care if their team wins while other school’s students just to go to hang out with their friends,” Zoe Soule, sophomore on the Statemen’s varsity girls team, said. I went to the Langley vs. Marshall game on December 8 and even though their crowd consisted of about 20 people, everybody participated in their chants. Some of the chants from the Marshall crowd may have been stupid, but it does not matter because they were doing it together. If the Langley crowd was anywhere close to as good as the Marshall mob and participated in the chants, I truly believe the Saxons would have won.  

“The crowd undeniably has a huge effect on the games on Fridays. Not only do they impact the other team by talking to them in warmups, but the noise they make at those games gets us amped for the game and excited to play,” Carton said. It is not like you are rooting for an 0-22 team of Mclean’s nature last year. Our team is competitive in the conference and when they have lost, it has been close, except against South Lakes who is usually one of the best teams in the area. A united crowd could easily sway the score of the game by a few points and provide the support to help us win.