Spirit Raising: Pep Rallies!

Pep Rally Traditions

By: Brooklynn Wattenbarger

Everyone loves a good pep rally. The best ones, however, get EVERYONE involved in the school spirit. The students, spirit squads, and teachers. The best way to do so is to create traditions that are special to your school, so the whole community can take pride in the school spirit. Here are a few great traditions starters to consider trying at your next pep rally.

✰ Fight song! A school fight song is a tradition as old as time, but one that is typically overlooked. Your school may already have a fight song. If so, as a team think of ways you can more involve your whole school in the fight song. Can you get your crowd to shout out lyrics? Add crowd motions? If your school does not currently have a fight song, collaborate with your band to create one and start your own tradition. The fight song is a tradition that goes from pep rallies to games to graduations and more.

✰ Create an annual performance with the dance team, cheer squad, and band at your school! A great time to do so could be the first day of school or a Christmas themed performance in December. The cheer and dance team can perform individual routines to the band’s music. There can even be a finale with all three squads. This is a great way to unite all of the spirit squad members.

✰ Student Section Dance! Create a simple dance with crowd favorite moves everyone can do. This can be short and repetitive, and easy to do to any song. Teach the dance to your student section at a pep rally and do the dance in the stands at athletic events. This is fun for everyone! You could also implement a dance that everyone already knows such as, The Chicken Dance.

✰ Rollercoaster! The rollercoaster is a classic tradition that is so much fun for the crowd. How it works: the leader starts at one end of the crowd and runs across to the other end. As the leader passes you in the crowd, you stand up, raise your arms, and sit back down while screaming as if you were on a rollercoaster. This can be done at pep rallies as well as athletic events.

✰ Relay races! These are a great way to involve students from the crowd in the pep rally. You can even create teams with a few members from each class and have a competition versus grades. If you do one each pep rally and switch up the tasks in the race, the students will look forward to it and volunteer to participate. A little competition is always good.

✰ “Pass it Down” or “Moving Up” Pep Rally! The first day of the school year, many schools have a symbolic pep rally where each class has the opportunity to “move up” to the next grade. They can do this physically by running together as a class or each class can pass down something special from the upperclassmen to the underclassmen.

✰ Free stuff! Who doesn’t love free stuff? Throwing free spirit gear into the crowd at a pep rally will absolutely be a fan favorite. Especially if the items you throw can be used to raise school spirit like mini pom poms, megaphones, or school logo temporary tattoos.

✰Dance Battle! Everyone loves a good dance battle. If you can find some brave students to volunteer, the crowd will love to watch, and the competition will get people involved.

✰ Yell competition! Another fan favorite is the classic decibel meter yell competition. You can have the students yell out a traditional school chant at the top of their lungs or just scream out to the rooftops. Use a decibel meter to measure who is the loudest. This is another great activity to do as a competition against classes.

✰ Lead the fans! Sometimes the crowd needs a little help to follow along with cheers, chants, and even fun pep rally games. It’s a great idea to have the cheer and dance teams in front of the crowd as if they were on the sidelines to lead the fans and increase the hype.

These are all great ways to raise spirit, increase involvement, and create traditions for your school during pep rallies. Try some of these and create some of your own! Your school will thank you for it for years to come.