Kennedy is notorious for their school spirit, especially when it comes to sports. Although lately, behavior in the student section has taken a turn. Leaving us wondering if we are notorious or infamous?
Student Section etiquette for the 2025-2026 season has made cheering on the Cougars problematic for some. Administration encourages the large crowd and noise, but now has to tighten rules around the student section due to inappropriate behavior.
“Let me start from the beginning. This year there’s just a little bit more of the foolishness. Primarily pushing, shoving and throwing things,” Principal Jason Kline said. “At the Linn Marr games…and up til now, and it’s dangerous stuff. Someone falls and they bump into someone and somebody else falls, they could get hurt.”
If trouble continues, there will be consequences for students who misbehave. Students who do not follow the rules will be kicked out of the games for the rest of the year.
“I correct people, they stop. That’s kind of the key. I’m all about making lots of noise, I’m all about having good cheers and chants but we don’t need to be crossing lines and attacking the players,” said Kline. “We don’t need to be cursing or saying rude things to the refs.”
Cheerleaders have also felt the disrespect by the boisterous student section. For them it is a change, they went from leading cheers to listening to profanity and occasionally dodging objects.
“We hear a lot of foul language and phrases especially when the team is losing or there’s a bad call that they think is unfair,” said junior cheerleader Peyton Bilden-Baccam. “What I’ve taken away from the experience is that just one person or even a small group of people can ruin it for everyone.”
It can be conflicting for members of the cheer team to differentiate between encouraging the energy from their peers, while staying positive and supportive. The student section will encourage certain chants to be performed, but recently has had to ignore cheers led by senior team members.
“Our job is to lead the student section,” senior cheerleader Mirabelle Sackfield said. “When they ignore our chants or scream over our cheers, it feels like there is no reason for us to be there.”
However, seniors also feel a sense of leadership over the student section when they cheer from the front two rows of the stands. This is to control the rest of the crowd and lead the chants. Freshman, sophomores and juniors stay behind the seniors to honor seniority and encourage order.
“The student section is getting worse by the week because of the rules that are put in place, the student section is safe and always has been,” said senior student section leader, Parker Gray. “You look at other student sections who don’t have as many rules and you see kids having more fun without being hurt, the whole point of the student section is for students to have fun and bring a good crowd. You can’t do that with more and more rules.”
Clarity of “fun” and respect seems to be lost. Cheerleaders and senior student section leaders need to work together to keep the crowd engaged while still staying respectful.
Kline is determined to stop the unwanted behaviors to prevent people from being hurt and allow everyone to enjoy the game. The first attempt to better monitor the student section will be to record the games.
“We’re going to set an iPad on a tripod and we’re going to record the crowd. That way, if things are thrown, we can go back and review the video. Because it’s very hard, even when I’m watching, it’s very hard to see where things are coming from,” Kline said. “But If I’ve got video, I can get a much better idea where things are coming from.”
