As of October 31st, West has ended their football season, leaving behind cheer, marching band, and color guard. Many students have begun looking back at their experience on field, reminiscing their stories and the graduating students that their team may never group up with again. None of the performers are excluded from the memories that are being observed, leaving the field with tears and a smile, proud of what their groups have accomplished in this short season.
“It’s kind of unfortunate [that the season is ending], ‘cause I had a really fun time this year but I have hockey to look up to so I’m not too upset,” Robert Councilor, a junior in Varsity said.
Many of the performers depend on each other, including the bleacher creatures that have powerful chants. One surprising chant, though, was one with the color guard team to the cheerleaders. This was a surprise to both the cheerleaders and members of the color guard.
“It’s awesome, that we both have each other and like it’s a good way to like cause sometimes the bleacher creatures don’t always hype us up so having the color guard help us out with that too,” Kalyn Andreasson, the Senior cheer captain said.
Color guard performs during halftime with the band, they play an important role during that performance. During the songs that the band plays, the color guard throws and catches multiple flags that match the songs. They come up with a ton of ideas for the dances that end up into a masterpiece that the audience enjoys.
“When I’m on the field I’m always nervous I’m gonna mess up or go to the wrong place but I also don’t know how to explain it but I feel like kind of empowered in a way? It’s like ‘wow I’m performing in front of thousands of people and they’re all cheering and I look so cool,’” Indigo Cram, a freshman in color guard said.
Preparing for halftime performances in West has always been a distinct memory of the band members and color guard members alike, but even the long hours have very memorable moments that the students share with one another.
“In terms of long time preparation we have our band camp, and we have a three hour rehearsal every week, and then band camp is two weeks all day outside, training the drill, figuring out where we’re going, and then a couple music blocks to work on the music, make everything sound good. And then the night of the performance, I’m on drumline so I’m usually there [for] about two and a half hours before kickoff, warming up, prepping things, doing run throughs, we march over to the stadium and do our pre-game and then go up into the stands, and the about halfway through the second quarter we go down, we warm up and prepare to do the halftime show,” Paige Lober, a sophomore in Marching band said.