Every school has a huge fanbase that has their back, but some teams have better crowds than other teams. You could compare who has the best facepaint or most beads, but what really matters is how you carry your school pride. The sportsmanship that these fans show is carried onto the court and played through the game. At Frederick, the rowdy crowd is the team’s backbone when it comes to supporting.

“The rowdy crowd helps the team in a huge way! When the players see their peers in the crowd getting excited and cheering them on, it takes them to another level of energy on the court,” says Coach Enoch. “Every time the rowdy crowd goes nuts after a big play it gets the players going. The atmosphere against Erie was the best I have seen since I’ve been at Frederick and the rowdy crowd was a big part of that. Athletes, like all other students, love to feel supported. The rowdy crowd shows that love to the players and they feed off it.” Although the rowdy crowd can drive a team to the finish line, it can also throw off their game depending on the circumstances.

Some of the actions that the rowdy crowd does can affect the team and how some view the team and their school as a whole. At the much-awaited Erie vs. Frederick basketball game, one of Erie’s students rushed the basketball court and flipped off the whole crowd, trying to throw off the game of the players or play a practical joke. Not only was that a disrespectful move, but it looks bad on a whole school based on one student’s actions. The student was immediately chased off the court by Mr. Young and other supervisors and escorted out of the game. Many students wondered if it was worth it, as it gave a lot of the students in the Frederick rowdy crowd a laugh.

If this were to be Mr. Lopez’s student, they wouldn’t have gotten off very easily. “They would most definitely be banned from all after school activities, followed up by a suspension, maybe even a ticket,” says Mr. Lopez. If the student were to play a sport, they could also be taken out of the season because of their actions. That’s why Mr. Young and Mr. Lopez try to influence the students to have a positive outlook on the game so a student doesn’t do anything like this. Mr. Young is always telling his students to “Rise above,” and to show people what Frederick is really made of.  When a student does something like this, it stays on the mind for everybody involved. After the win, Mr. Lopez went home happy and proud of the boys but the next morning he had to deal with the aftermath of what had happened. He had to deal with the parents and the other school to figure out the actions that should take place.

What sucks is this game was one of the best ones of the whole season but was overshadowed by the actions of this student. This truly hurt the reputation of Erie. With students that act like that, parents will view this and not want to put their kids in that school. In conclusion, when students are sitting in the rowdy crowd, they need to be smart. Games like this one that is a cross-town rivalry game can get pretty heated but the bigger school with the most professional actions will win the night.