The Issue With Bellevue High Spirit

Photo by Aimee

The spirit at Bellevue High has been slipping for years, and this year is no different. Student sections in every sport have lay empty and games are often played quietly with select parents cheering in the stands. Even Bellevue’s nationally recognized football program has been struggling with attendance and silence is beginning to feel like the new norm. Players feel both unimportant and unmotivated during games. So what happened, and more importantly how do we fix it?

To grasp the problem, you don’t have to dig very deep. Sports that used to have dedicated fanbases now gather fractions of the student body. Just 2 years ago Bellevue’s game against Lake Stevens had the bleachers full and the crowd roaring. Students squeezed in tight and even then, there wasn’t enough room for everyone forcing overflow viewing onto the paths by the bleachers. By contrast, this year’s game against Lake Steven’s had few in the stands and fewer on theme only filling up a couple of the front rows.

            Junior water polo player Justin Shen wasn’t happy with attendance saying “it was mostly parents showing up at games, so we had to motivate ourselves. It was a little upsetting especially since we tried to get people to show up numerous times too.”

The disappointment bleeds into athletes’ performance too. The dead atmosphere makes games feel flat and as a result play suffers. Teams play better when it feels like Bellevue’s there to back them up.

Shen furthered discussed, “Compared to other student sections ours is lacking. Mercer Island had drummers, flags, and a full student section while Bellevue’s had maybe two students. It’s not that hard to come out for an hour and cheer for our teams but it seems like nobody is willing to do that anymore.

So how do we fix spirit and why has attendance collapsed in a matter of years? Well, the largest part of the decline is because a culture shift that has happened in recent years. People now stay home because they have homework, want to scroll, then looseing the habit of showing up. And a lot of that comes from the belief that “someone else will go.” That culture needs to change, and the responsibility falls upon ASB, and spirit club two groups dedicated to getting students to show up. While tradition is great innovation is also desperately needed.

But it’s also on us. We need to start showing up. Not just for the big sports like football. But also, for the ones that often go unnoticed. There’s a hard truth. Bellevue’s bleachers aren’t what they used to be. But it doesn’t have to be that way. We need to show up to represent our school on the field, on the court, and at the pool. Our school spirit isn’t dead, but it won’t survive if we keep pretending someone else will come and magically revive it for us.