College Writing 1
17 January 2011
“Can You Handle It” Nextier Stadium, home of the Raiders, rumbles with anticipation; the overhead lights flicker on eliminating the field in a harsh glow. The stadium is filled to capacity, everyone anticipating the start of the game but none more than members of the Seneca Valley student section. Each student is pulsing with eagerness as they await kickoff. The bleachers are vibrating, shaking as the students jump up and down. The Seneca Valley kicker, dressed in rich Columbia blue and black, runs at the brown freckled football sitting on the neon orange tee. He catapults the ball to the fifteen yard line where North Allegheny’s returner waits for the ball to come down. He begins to run the ball back. “Get Him!” the student section screams with all their power willing the players on the field to crush the NA player. Do you want to know more about the section? Do you want be to part of the section, for each member of the student section will experience something unimaginable, will create memories that last a lifetime and will be a part of something special. In the lower-left hand corner of the home side of Nextier Stadium sits the student section, a place where the craziest of Seneca students go to root for their friends, boyfriends and classmates, who are fighting for victory on the field. Students come with faces and stomachs covered in paint. Taking more time to ready themselves for the games then they do for school in the morning; girls arrive with an “SV” on their cheek or a black handprint spanning from their forehead to their chin sprinkled in glitter. Boys have shirts off and chests layered traditional Seneca color, black and blue; paint cracking by halftime, leaving specks on the students around him. His peers and friends surrounding him end up looking as if they came painted with the exact design. Make sure you wear old clothes or ones that you don’t mind ruining for through the course of the game, your clothes will look like Jackson Pollock’s new creation. Seniors and juniors stuff themselves into the first rows like books into a locker. The rest of the underclassman scramble for a spot behind them, pushing and shoving is common. Coming home with bruises is not only likely, it’s expected. With hundreds of students in such a compact area, one little move or a slight gust of wind can send a whole row falling like a house of cards or a set of dominos; knock one over and the rest go down with it. Inside the section you feel like a sardine, pressed into a tight metal container without any air and at least fifteen degrees hotter. You might complain having dozens of very sweaty people that close to you, beads of sweat rolling down their foreheads, and the putrid smell of the heat. During the frigid October night, it is a blessing from the football gods to have these people huddled so close to you. You might even clutch on to someone you only know from seeing them in the hallway, when the harsh wind whips through your hair or as the temperature drops by twenty when the sun goes down. Then when the skies open up releasing buckets of waters, drenching you and the members of the section standing in the section you’ll pray for the cover of your fellow comrade; you’ll be so thankful to use them as an umbrella. You’ll lose your voice and balance cheering for the Raiders. Screaming obscenities and booing your foes. Senior leader of Raider Nation, Mason, wears a crown for he is the king and all who stand behind are his court. He takes his throne and stands in the first row. As any king would do, he gives orders to his court; do this chant or scream this cheer. When a first down is earned, Mason holds up one hand and counts to three. When the third finger is raised, the section follows his lead in tomahawking in the air towards the end zone the Raiders are aiming for. If the Raiders put a stop to the opponents drive, the leader, screams to his loyal subjects “What’d they get?” The section answers “Nothing” then he asks “Where’d they go?” and again the section responds “Nowhere.” Hot dogs and hot chocolate, pepperoni rolls and Pepsi are regulars in the stands. Pretzels covered in small white morsels of salt sit on a plain paper plate with bright orange cheese in a cup on the side, look and smell delicious when someone carries them down the bleachers then try to push themselves back into the throng; but you lose your appetite as someone bumps them sending the cup of imitation cheese down the front of your shirt. Be careful when you sit down or you might end up with a weenie stuck to your backside. But don’t let that turn you away from joining the section. It is a thrill being there. Being in the student section is a completely different experience then just watching the game. You actually get into cheering for the boys on the field; enjoy being an integral part of the game. Being loud is not only fun, it is important. If the students are deafening, screaming and yelling the loudest they possibly can the oppositions’ lineman won’t be able to hear the snap count and draw them offside. Or when the opposing team is kicking a field goal, it is the student section’s job to be as boisterous and ear splittingly distracting as human nature will allow forcing the competition’s kicker to be unsettled so he will send the ball flying wide of the two yellow goal posts. The section has also been set with the task of discouraging the other team. Screaming and yelling at them, making them lose their sprit. It sounds un-sportsman like and most of the time it is but it was the main rest for the section’s creation. Inside the section, you cheer and scream. You yell and fight with other members to get the perfect spot. If you have to use the restroom; you probably shouldn’t. Use it before you get there or you will be doing the potty dance the whole game. Once someone sees any empty spot they pounce like a lion in the Sahara. Friday nights, under the lights and the football fights only add to the experience you get when you set foot in the Seneca Valley Student Section. Do you want this? Have you always imagined the day when you spent hours before the game splattering paint across your body? Do you hunger to be part of something special? The more important question is: “Can you handle it?”