BEAR PRIDE: Must it just be nothing but a fairy tale?
by Isaiah Murtaugh, Sports Editor
In an ideal world, Poly’s “Spirit Fridays” (those days when the associated student body demands that the school populace don orange and green apparel), would be days when the campus was awash in riotous orange and green, and outpourings of pride in our alma mater. In reality, these “Spirit” days, and any other event that remotely mentions school spirit, are sad affairs, usually participated in whole-heartedly by none, and only half-heartedly by homecoming royalty, the associated student body itself, and any student whose respective teacher hands out extra credit for participation. Any attendance to school activities such as homecoming, athletic events and concerts seems to be not out of pride for the school, but for the social opportunities such events provide. So where is this elusive school spirit? Why does it stay away from our hallowed brick and green halls?
Being a senior, I’ve watched this phenomenon (or lack thereof) thrive at Poly throughout my four years. There have been brief upwellings of school pride, including during the girls’ water polo CIF three-peat a few years back, but for the most part, spirit has stagnated. I’ll admit that I have not been a champion of its cause. In fact, I’d even call myself a “hater.” A few weeks ago, however, I attended a girls’ volleyball game, and saw, through the rowdy display of a few fans, how fantastic school pride really is. So why don’t we have it?
For one, and this is easily the most minor reason, our colors are orange and green.
“I think it’s a bad combination, it’s just hard to work with, man,” fashion aficionado and blogger Shelby Clemmons (12) said.
So why do we have this glorious color combination? Rumour has it that orange and green were originally selected to match Riverside’s prolific orange groves, an economic asset that made Riverside one of the United States’ richest cities during the late 1800s. So yes, this awkward color combination has significance. Take pride in it.
Secondly, and probably most importantly, our cheerleading squad doesn’t lead cheers and our pep squad has no pep. At every football game I’ve been to (admittedly very few), as well as every basketball game I’ve attended (I actually have been to all of these) over my three and a quarter years here, I have never heard any demonstrations, vocal or otherwise, of school spirit other than those sparked by members of the crowd. Very rarely do the pep squad’s shrill cheers ever catch on, and even more rarely do cheers that don’t contain the phrase, “Green Machine” catch on (please approach me if I’m mistaken, cheerleaders). Is there any solution to this? I can see two conceivable ones. The less probable solution is that the cheer team stops treating athletic events like parades and that their voices all drop about an octave. The more probable solution is an independent student spirit organization along the lines of the LA Galaxy’s Riot Squad or Cal Baptist University’s CBU Crazies. Get a cool name like the “Bear Battalion,” print t-shirts, come up with some cool new cheers that aren’t used by every school in the continental United States, recruit some highly spirited, shameless individual to run around in orange and green spandex waving a flag and “voila”, an instant school spirit generator. School spirit breeds school spirit, and the more people who buy in, the more students will want to be a part of it.
For three years, I have harbored nothing but apathy for the orange and green. No longer. I bleed orange and green. Seriously. Look at this spot where I skinned my knee. The blood is orange and green.