My freshman year, I attended the homecoming dance for the first time. My expectations were low as many had warned me of it being a”grind-fest.” However, it was honestly so fun. I went right after the game with my closest friends and I was greeted with a room designated for only dancing. 

It felt freeing. Everyone was dancing, so no one cared whether my dorky-freshman self was badly dancing or not. I loved the loud music and the flashing lights. It was unlike anything my 14 year-old brain had every experienced. They played “Holla Back Girl,” by Gwen Stefani and my stupid friends and I were absolutely getting after it, just basically jumping around but enjoying ourselves thoroughly. In the middle of the B-A-N-A-N-A-S verse, I looked up and saw the senior student aid for my algebra class with a visor upside down and sideways on his head and a whistle in his mouth as he disco danced and I said to myself, “That’s school spirit.”

Well, my senior year homecoming didn’t give that to me. When I got into the dance, I was met with around 200 people standing on the dance floor and when I say standing I mean just standing. I will say the music wasn’t exactly ideal, and was a little bit difficult to dance to, still my small group of friends managed it.

I looked around at all these people and asked myself: what happened? Where did all that fun I experienced freshman year go? Then it hit me: the only answer I could come up with was the lack of school spirit has destroyed yet another thing. There’s something lacking that we had when we were freshmen, but don’t have as seniors. 

Maybe it just has to do with the fact that we were young and we were looking up to them and it seemed like so much fun, but yet no one was dancing. There seemed to be more people in the bleachers having fun than on the dance floor. 

The problem with homecoming addresses a bigger issue at Sahuaro, the lack of school spirit or loyalty. We don’t even know our fight song. I don’t know how to fix this problem. Maybe it will self-correct over time, but I feel like the more that people complain about the lack of school spirit, the more it disintegrates in front of us. Do other schools have this problem? Is it just a 2019 issue or this is something that is unique to our school? 

It’s the seniors’ job to fix this, but as a senior, I have no idea how we’re going to. Maybe I should talk to student council? But it’s not like they haven’t been trying this whole time.

I want to have that feeling, it would make my senior year so much more fun. As a whole, we need to learn to care more.