School Spirit & Tradition!

[JRidge]

What are your thoughts on schools having good school spirit & tradition? How is this development made possible in your opinion?

[badndn]

Starts with the parents! When the kids are young and impressionable. If the parents are involved (and positive) then the traditions will form and mean something to the next generation. And not just a few parents. The bulk of the community. Can't bash the school or the admins or the coaching for every move. Doing so breaks down the pride in the school.

This is all difficult to accomplish in districts without true feeder schools.

[CougarCal]

My kids went to Elementary school in Groves. They couldn't wait til Fridays to wear purple and hear Cherokee on the loud speakers. It started early over there. On Friday nights, the stadium is packed young and old. 3 years ago when PNG played Crosby in Crosby, they had more fans at the game than Crosby did. The entire community supports their teams. Outside Nederland, they were barbqueing and tailgating before the game. Fan base!!!

[Mr. Buddy Garrity]

Starts with the parents! When the kids are young and impressionable. If the parents are involved (and positive) then the traditions will form and mean something to the next generation. And not just a few parents. The bulk of the community. Can't bash the school or the admins or the coaching for every move. Doing so breaks down the pride in the school.
This is all difficult to accomplish in districts without true feeder schools.

100% agree!

[jordibug15]

Lumberton has started grilling and tailgating before games. And the little kids all play football in the open field behind the visitor side. I love Lumberton

[fwoodfan]

I grew up in Lufkin, which has great high school football traditions that were around before I was in school in the 80s and some are still around today. When I was a senior we got a new coach who tried to start a tradition of putting a huge rock in one endzone, painting it school colors, and painting the team record on the rock.  He called them Panther Rocks.  After he left they stopped doing it and removed the old rocks.

 

I think the students have to buy into the traditions and the parents have to support their continuation.  But, I dont think there is a guaranteed way to make it happen.

 

The best traditions that we have in Friendswood related to football are the Patriotic Halftime program and the homecoming parade.

[Amphibious Rodent]

Consistently winning is the best way to start traditions. Then everyone buys in. Everyone supports. But to start a winning tradition, it helps if you buy into the coaches program, give him support and a few years. If he has a good program you'll most likely compete. Good programs are square. You develope athletes, a few are born, most or developed, mentored, and are a product of there community and system as it develops it's winning tradition.

[Mr. Buddy Garrity]

I grew up in Lufkin, which has great high school football traditions that were around before I was in school in the 80s and some are still around today. When I was a senior we got a new coach who tried to start a tradition of putting a huge rock in one endzone, painting it school colors, and painting the team record on the rock.  He called them Panther Rocks.  After he left they stopped doing it and removed the old rocks.
 
I think the students have to buy into the traditions and the parents have to support their continuation.  But, I dont think there is a guaranteed way to make it happen.
 
The best traditions that we have in Friendswood related to football are the Patriotic Halftime program and the homecoming parade.

was that before Coach Outlaw got to Lufkin?

[TradinUp BH]

We moved to BH two years ago from PNG. My kids to this day want to move back. They told us that they would rather graduate from PNG than BH. They started in Kindergarten at PNG and we lived there for a long time. It's hard to get the purple blood out of your system. lol Alot of it is a close knit community between Port Neches and Groves. The majority of kids and parents are close friends, they buy into the traditions already in place with new ones being made every year. My kids learned "Cherokee" in kindergarten. They send players, cheerleaders, Indian Spirit to the elementary schools for pep ralleys. The schools play a huge part as well because they push the spirit from high school to elementary. Those kids are counting down the days that they will be able to play for the high school whether football, baseball, basketball, Indianettes, etc.. There is no school district that comes close to the spirit of PNG. I have people in Barbers Hill that tell me they can't stand when Cherokee is played, but they think it's neat to watch the Indian Spirit dance and all of the traditions of PNG. That says alot when other schools admire your spirit and traditions, although they wouldn't admit it on here. lol :D

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZWE0sNntAQ

[JRidge]

All good post on here! I'm hearing what all we had during the Hebert Panther era as when we played football at the games and wanted to play for the legendary coaches and where the "Mighty Blue & Gold!" Ozen has only been open since 1997 which is 17 yrs. ago, and this is why there are not many alumni with kids at the school to pass on any traditions! Westbrook opened in 1982 which is 32 yrs. ago and Central opened up in 1986 I believe which would be 28 years ago, giving these two schools their tradition! Interesting comments from people on how tradition is started and/or maintained.

[CAL2TEX]

I agree that it starts with youngsters and the elementary schools.  I know that Cherokee was the first song I learned the words to.  I was spelling S-P-I-R-I-T, F-I-G-H-T, I-N-D-I-A-N-S and V-I-C-T-O-R-Y way before any of my cousins and other friends outside of Port Neches. It's community involvement and support throughout.

[Octfeb]

Consistently winning is the best way to start traditions. Then everyone buys in. Everyone supports. But to start a winning tradition, it helps if you buy into the coaches program, give him support and a few years. If he has a good program you'll most likely compete. Good programs are square. You develope athletes, a few are born, most or developed, mentored, and are a product of there community and system as it develops it's winning tradition.

 I agree with your comment 100%. 

[NDNation]

Kids around here can spell Indian before they can spell their own name.

 

My pets even love Cherokee. No matter where they are in the house or yard, I start singing Cherokee and they come running.

 

 

They may think I'm being attacked. :ph34r:

[Bigdog]

Kids around here can spell Indian before they can spell their own name.

 

My pets even love Cherokee. No matter where they are in the house or yard, I start singing Cherokee and they come running.

 

 

They may think I'm being attacked. :ph34r:

 

No, probably you are hurting their ears and they want you to stop!   :blink:

[AledoBearcatsCO2014]

Aledo has never had less fans then the opposing team since at least 1996. I've been to every game since 1996... I can attest that the spirit we have is a big factor in how successful we've been.

[NDNation]

No, probably you are hurting their ears and they want you to stop!   :blink:

You know Cherokee is a beautiful piece of music, unless you're saying its my voice :angry: :angry: :D :ph34r:

[prepballfan]

Ozen has hired a great football coach that is a good start. I have a very close friend who has done his part and owned season tickets for Ozen since day one. Ozen has everything right now ready to go. New coach, new stadium, and great athletes to win with. I think they will be a force in the next few years.........

[Bigdog]

You know Cherokee is a beautiful piece of music, unless you're saying its my voice :angry: :angry: :D :ph34r:

I haven't heard your voice so I couldn't comment. But the song sounds like nails on a chalkboard ! :)

[PNG1977]

I haven't heard your voice so I couldn't comment. But the song sounds like nails on a chalkboard ! :)

Come on...it's better than grown men barking like dogs! :)

[mytwocents-28]

Come on...it's better than grown men barking like dogs! :)

I disagree. They are both equally painful to the ears.

[JRidge]

Ozen has hired a great football coach that is a good start. I have a very close friend who has done his part and owned season tickets for Ozen since day one. Ozen has everything right now ready to go. New coach, new stadium, and great athletes to win with. I think they will be a force in the next few years.........

I hope so, 3 of my kids will be playing under him and he coached one of my stepsons at Central! His defense was solid and I belive his offense will be as well!

[fwoodfan]

was that before Coach Outlaw got to Lufkin?

Coach Outlaw might have been the one to remove the rocks.  The coach who came up with the rock idea was after Coach Cauley and before Coach Outlaw.  It was Pat Culpepper who came up with the rock idea.  In fairness, it didnt seem too bad at the time, it just didnt stick after he left

 

If Coach Outlaw had come up with it, it would have stuck because he won. He was a great coach and a great man who is still missed by the school, the community, and his former players. He made a positive difference in the lives of many. He was the most successful coach in the history of the program and I dont just mean on the field.

[PN-G bamatex]

You can't reduce it to any one factor. There are several factors needed for the environment to be conducive to it.

 

First things first, you have to have the teachers sold on it. To this day, the kindergartners are marched into the music rooms at every elementary school in the district on the first day of the year to learn Cherokee. The first words I can remember learning to spell after my name were Indians, spirit, fight, and victory (these days, they're spelling conquest too, so I guess you could say they're faster learners than we were). Most of my teachers made wearing a purple shirt on Fridays a requirement during football season, and several made it extra credit after football season was over. There were pep rallies with the Indian Spirit present, and several of the teachers wrote exclusively in purple ink. My first grade teacher, Mrs. Cobb, drove a purple cadillac. While things kind of died off in middle school (probably a result of letting the pride in the middle school programs die off without a real replacement), in high school, we had been so indoctrinated at such a young age that all of the underlying groundwork was in place for the pride to come back with a vengeance. Just like in elementary school, all of the high school teachers were in their purple on Fridays.

 

Second, you have to sell the community on it. When I was a kid, there was a store in Central Mall called Purple Pizzazz that sold, among other things, PN-G memorabilia. I remember parents staying up all night to decorate Merriman Street my senior year so that the players, coaches, cheerleaders, Indianettes and band members could see their community behind them when they got on the buses to leave for a game. Every organization known to man had booths set up under the bleachers selling memorabilia to fans, keeping all of that money in the hands of the school district and ultimately, the students. 

 

Third, and most importantly, you have to have successful programs. In order for people to take pride in something, it has to be something to be proud of. PN-G has that. The success in athletics is well known and documented on this site. Our band program has a long and successful history as well, capped off by all three high school bands and both middle school bands taking sweepstakes last week (only one other district in the state had that happen this year). Our academic prominence is well publicized, too; we've now won the district crown in UIL academics fourteen of the last fifteen years, and we were recognized by the US Department of Education as a blue ribbon school several years consecutively in the late 90s and early 2000s.

 

When you provide those three factors, and you manage to keep them for an extended period of time, you start to build a history - the honor, the pride and the tradition become entrenched standards around which the school is built. You wind up with a pseudo-symbiotic relationship built between school and community that pervades in one way or another almost every facet of the lives of student, teacher, parent, administrator, and average citizen. And from there, it typically only grows. That's what results in your school being the centerpiece of an exhibit about Texas high school football at the Bullock Museum. That's what gets your purple letter jacket recognized all across the state and, to a lesser extent, even the country. That's what keeps both towns emptying out and all the alumni coming back with their families from wherever they are in the world to fill up the Astrodome, and the Alamodome, and Texas Stadium, and Kyle Field and hopefully Jerryworld one day to set national attendance records written in purple ink. That's why you get a stadium literally big enough to fit everyone who lives in your hometown with about four hundred seats to spare, and a Friday night radio broadcast with a viewership thousands of listeners strong - more than double that of the second most popular broadcast - that gets email responses from as far away as Siberia and Iraq.

 

And perhaps best of all, that's why you get fans of other schools who hate your fight song so much, that they know it better than their own.  :D

[mytwocents-28]

You can't reduce it to any one factor. There are several factors needed for the environment to be conducive to it.

First things first, you have to have the teachers sold on it. To this day, the kindergartners are marched into the music rooms at every elementary school in the district on the first day of the year to learn Cherokee. The first words I can remember learning to spell after my name were Indians, spirit, fight, and victory (these days, they're spelling conquest too, so I guess you could say they're faster learners than we were). Most of my teachers made wearing a purple shirt on Fridays a requirement during football season, and several made it extra credit after football season was over. There were pep rallies with the Indian Spirit present, and several of the teachers wrote exclusively in purple ink. My first grade teacher, Mrs. Cobb, drove a purple cadillac. While things kind of died off in middle school (probably a result of letting the pride in the middle school programs die off without a real replacement), in high school, we had been so indoctrinated at such a young age that all of the underlying groundwork was in place for the pride to come back with a vengeance. Just like in elementary school, all of the high school teachers were in their purple on Fridays.

Second, you have to sell the community on it. When I was a kid, there was a store in Central Mall called Purple Pizzazz that sold, among other things, PN-G memorabilia. I remember parents staying up all night to decorate Merriman Street my senior year so that the players, coaches, cheerleaders, Indianettes and band members could see their community behind them when they got on the buses to leave for a game. Every organization known to man had booths set up under the bleachers selling memorabilia to fans, keeping all of that money in the hands of the school district and ultimately, the students.

Third, and most importantly, you have to have successful programs. In order for people to take pride in something, it has to be something to be proud of. PN-G has that. The success in athletics is well known and documented on this site. Our band program has a long and successful history as well, capped off by all three high school bands and both middle school bands taking sweepstakes last week (only one other district in the state had that happen this year). Our academic prominence is well publicized, too; we've now won the district crown in UIL academics fourteen of the last fifteen years, and we were recognized by the US Department of Education as a blue ribbon school several years consecutively in the late 90s and early 2000s.

When you provide those three factors, and you manage to keep them for an extended period of time, you start to build a history - the honor, the pride and the tradition become entrenched standards around which the school is built. You wind up with a pseudo-symbiotic relationship built between school and community that pervades in one way or another almost every facet of the lives of student, teacher, parent, administrator, and average citizen. And from there, it typically only grows. That's what results in your school being the centerpiece of an exhibit about Texas high school football at the Bullock Museum. That's what gets your purple letter jacket recognized all across the state and, to a lesser extent, even the country. That's what keeps both towns emptying out and all the alumni coming back with their families from wherever they are in the world to fill up the Astrodome, and the Alamodome, and Texas Stadium, and Kyle Field and hopefully Jerryworld one day to set national attendance records written in purple ink. That's why you get a stadium literally big enough to fit everyone who lives in your hometown with about four hundred seats to spare, and a Friday night radio broadcast with a viewership thousands of listeners strong - more than double that of the second most popular broadcast - that gets email responses from as far away as Siberia and Iraq.

And perhaps best of all, that's why you get fans of other schools who hate your fight song so much, that they know it better than their own. :D

Wow bamakid. Post of the year right here. No one could have said it any better.

[fwoodfan]

That's a great post bamakid.  I've been reading and thinking about this since I made my first post in the thread and one other thing occurs to me that helps build school spirit and tradition:  A true, long term rivalry with another team of near or equal quality.

 

In Lufkin we had Nacogdoches.  Even if your team was crappy in a given year you could still get up for your rival and take pride in a win.