Every year in celebration for our fall athletes, Glen Rock High School holds a pep rally in the gym, in the middle of October. At every pep rally, each grade has its own section of the high school gym, on each of the four bleachers. Normally, every grade is called down to the gym, and then they head to the bleachers and show their support. The gym is noisy, with music blasting and students cheering. The pep rally started with a performance from the cheerleaders, followed by some games, and recognition of fall sports.
The pep rally offers a variety of games which this year included; dodgeball, tug of war, half-court shot, and musical chairs. This time, the most popular game seemed to be Dodgeball, Tug of War, and the Half Court Shot, with 30.8% of students in the sample agreeing equally. However, out of the 13 students sampled, 38.5% of the students thought that musical chairs were their favorite game to watch. Overall, 46.2% of students sampled, were neutral on their enjoyment of the pep rally, whereas 30.8% of students enjoyed it, and 23.1% of students really enjoyed it.
This year, Nick Tufano and Jordyn Amram, President and Vice President of the Student Council, MC’D the fall pep rally.
“It felt great. Like, I had been working on this for a while, you know, all the games, the script, and I was in contact with the cheerleaders. So it was like, I felt like it was all kind of coming together,” Nick said.
Being up in front of the entire school MC’ing is not easy. The added pressure of hundreds of students watching you while you speak can definitely feel frightening. However, Nick asserted that “[he doesn’t] get very nervous, but right in the start, it was definitely a little nerve-wracking to be up there in the center with everybody. But I think after the Pledge of Allegiance and the first cheerleader performance, I kind of held my ground a little bit.”
Over the summer, Mr. McGoey and Mr. Reinertsen were asked to advise and help plan the pep rally, and Mr. McGoey was quite nervous at first.
“Being an adviser, you want to make sure everything runs smoothly. And for the most part, it really did. We wanted every activity to be seamless. And so when I got to it, it was nice to get to enjoy it and also be a part of it.”
Mr. McGoey and Mr. Reinertsen had a great time setting it up and executing the rally. Mr. McGoey, a history teacher at Glen Rock High School, spoke about some of his plans for the pep rally, and how it went down.
Mr. McGoey wanted the pep rally to be student-driven, adding that “all of our student council members, Nick, Jordyn, Gavin, Madison, and Vivaan really came up with everything. They chose all the games, music, and activities that they had planned.”
Andrew Vincenti, a Senior at Glen Rock High School, went up when it was time for the half-court shot game. Andrew has tried the half-court shot before, and he hadn’t made it yet, but this year he wanted to give it another try.
“I felt like this time was gonna be different, I was just ready, I wasn’t gonna blow my shot,” Vincenti said.
To his surprise, Andrew made the half-court shot asserting that “I was overjoyed, you know, it was the ability to make the shot in front of everyone, and have all my friends, and the school see it, it was definitely super cool.”
Andrew suggests that people should “support our school spirit and show out for each event.”
Overall, there was a good amount of participation in this year’s pep rally, and a good amount of people enjoyed watching the games and just showing school spirit.
“The students seemed like they had a great time. Everything was really intuitive. You could feel the school spirit and so overall, I would say it was a great, very successful day and something that you know, really got the school camaraderie together,” McGoey stated.
