The fall pep rally is a tradition like no other. This year proved no different as all the students gathered in the stadium on a bright and cloudless Friday morning on Sept. 8. From tug of war to Poms’ performance, the fall pep rally brought a burst of excitement and anticipation to the crowd as students and athletes alike look toward the eventful fall season.
However, the pep rally does far more than just spark excitement.
“I feel like it’s a whole WJ sports community. We all dress up for events so it’s just like a sense of community. It brings the team closer together and makes us all collaborate,” senior volleyball captain Gillian Fannon said.
The pep rally is one of the first introductions of WJ for freshmen. They get to be fully immersed in the Wildcat experience and community. They see the whole school together for the first time as they meet the new team captains and the new SGA members along with their peers.
“It was fun. It kind of sucked that I was on the other side but it was really cool seeing all the sports at WJ,” freshman Andrew Henderson said.
This year’s pep rally featured a range of sports and performances from the Poms dance routine and their famous snake to the crew team.
“My favorite part of the pep rally was the K-pop team,” sophomore Carter Wood said.
One of the best parts of the pep rally are the costumes. Chosen by the captains, each team rocks their own unique costumes and themes. From people wearing suits to police officer uniforms, there’s always a wide range of outfits to spot.
“We decided to be race car drivers this year. We originally wanted to be boxers but we felt that was too basic so we wanted a similar outfit so instead of a boxer cape we just went with jackets,” Fannon said.
Along with this tradition, comes the underclassman outfits. Most teams like to make their underclassmen wear outlandish outfits. Not only does this point out who the underclassmen are to everyone, but it also brings great fun and chemistry to the team.
“[My favorite part] is picking out the underclassmen’s outfits. [This year], the freshmen are blow-up tires and the one sophomore on our team is a blow-up car,” Fannon said.
At the end of the rally, randomly selected students from each grade battle it out in a game of tug-of-war.
“[My favorite part is] the tug-of-war,” SGA president Sidney Scale said.
In this year’s tournament, the sophomores beat the freshmen with the freshmen tumbling over in a matter of seconds. In the face off against the seniors, who decimated the juniors, the seniors demolished the sophomores to win it all with everyone having a good time.
“I didn’t want to go up with the freshmen because I thought we were going to lose,” Wood said.
