Having school spirit has proven to be the pinnacle of success for athletic teams. Having their peers watch their games gives them the support and confidence to perform and win games. The school spirit and support have been lacking at Wharton for the past few years, and the team’s records have shown this. But in a turn of events, the school spirit club Blue Crew has shown out and brought a record crowd to the first game of the season against Freedom on August the 22nd.
Packing the stands and showing what Wharton is capable of, from before the game tailgate and paint up to the chants and noise they brought from the stands pushed the football team to destroy their rival team in the first game of the season. That is what the new Blue Crew stands for. The Blue Crew leadership showed up and showed up early at the tailgate in the Freedom parking lot. Bringing pizza to draw the crowd in, while blasting music and painting the students up, riling them up for the game. As the tailgate finished, the crowd piled into the stands and the chants started roaring around the stadium. A blue crew officer Lauren King stated “Chase has done such a good job running Blue Crew this year. We went from having 20 kinds at the games to over 100. From before the game at the Tailgate to the student section in the stands he has done such a good job”.
With help from the Blue Crew hype men (Courtney, Makiah, Lauren, and Mia) the crowd was in sync with each other. Blue Crew hype man Mia stated “getting the students hyped unlike they have been in the past few years has really brought the student section together”. Giving the Wharton players extra motivation to destroy Freedom.
As the game went on, the score only went up. While the hype in the stands was cool, the real hype was in watching the Wharton football team led by Quarterback Jaden Quenga and Kicker Owen Brown extended their lead nearly every drive. While the defense led by Elijah Stratford who collected a sack, held the Freedom Patriots to 0 points in all 4 quarters. The offence stole the show scoring a whopping 37 points, Christopher Hilton was the one who stole the show on offence scoring 2 touchdowns for the Wildcats. Owen Brown stated that “watching the boys take a week one dub in such a way against our cross-town rivals Freedom has really been giving the team motivation to win this season.”
This is just the start for the Wildcats. Showing up on and off the field is now the new standard for the Cats and will be the mission for the rest of this 2025 season.