Athletics commission introduces Red Zone to school

In an effort to increase student spirit at the remaining home football games, the athletics commission has created and will monitor the “Red Zone,” a section of the bleachers where students can sit together and cheer on their peers.

The athletics commission, consisting of senior Florence Wang and juniors Madison Gress and Dani Bruno, hope that the zone will improve the atmosphere at football games.

  “We wanted to have a section where all the students could sit together and cheer because we noticed that a lot of the students sit really spread apart,” Gress said. “We thought that if it was more unified, [students] would be louder and create a more spirited environment.”

According to Gress, they also plan to hold promotions to increase school spirit later on for students who are wearing all red and sitting in the Red Zone. They will receive something for free such as a T-shirt or another type of apparel promoting school spirit .

“It’d be good to have a [red zone] because there would be a lot more people participating in Code Red (a team that often run shirtless in front of the bleachers at football games) or actually coming to football games,” sophomore Code Red participant Arnav Pawar said.

The commission tried it at the Homecoming football game Oct. 4, but only about seven people sat there. A section was supposed to be marked off before the JV game started, but because the banner the publicity/spirit commission made could  not be found, Wang had to go home after school and make another banner. 

By the time the banner was ready, the JV game had already started. 

“We were planning to create the section next to the band but parents were already there,” Wang said. “I think it's commonly known by the students that parents sit near the band so the students also didn't go there.”

Despite the lack of students at the first Red Zone attempt, Wang said they will still be doing it at every home football game, although they may change the location of the zone for games to come. 

“We've learned from our mistakes, and we'll try to form a better section next time,” she said.