In search of Blair fans

Two of the main reasons why Blair is such a unique school are its diversity and multiculturalism. In our school are future math and science geniuses, creative free spirits and students from dozens of different nations and cultures. But for all the great demographics our school has, it lacks in one category that mid- and up county schools don't: support for its sports teams.

Blair used to be a model in Montgomery County for school unity and spirit. Louis Hoelman, an alumnus who manages the softball team, said that support when he attended school 20 years ago didn't always hinge on the team's record.

"Our football team won two games in three years, and my friends and I went to every game. The stadium was always full," he said.

But our school's identity began to change. In the mid-1980s, it welcomed CAP and Magnet students, some of whom live at least 20 or 30 minutes from Blair. With the renovation and gentrification of Four Corners and Silver Spring, there became more to do on weekend nights than before. Coincidence or not, the support for the major sports teams (football and basketball) fell precipitously.

However, support is not just directly tied to ticket sales. In fact, it's even more about awareness. Here's a quick test to see how well you know Blair athletics: who's the starting quarterback for the football team?

At most schools that's an easy answer; the stereotype of the starting quarterback being the big man on campus is not a myth at many schools. But here, says baseball manager John MacDonald, our major teams don't promote themselves.

"To some kids on the football team, it seems," he says, "that it's not cool to stand up in front of their class and say `Hey, come to our game this week!' It's much cooler to be macho. [The players] just blend in with everyone else at the school." Most days, the football players don't wear letter jackets and Aaron Simon, our starting quarterback (and former QB Ross Williams) looks like any Blair student.

What our school lacks even more than visibility is a general sense of pride. Our pep rallies are meant to boost support for our football team, but all they do is disintegrate into a 45-minute battle of class chants. When the school divides students up by grade in the stands for the rally and promote the yelling, they waste a rare chance to unify all four classes of our school around our sports.

At this season's first home football game, even as Blair was locked in a tight contest late in the fourth quarter against Springbrook, the loudest noises from fans that I heard were "Ohhh-Six!" and "Seniors!" Not, "let's go Blair!" or anything like that.

There were plenty of bare bleachers at our final home game this year. With a playoff berth on the line, not having a larger crowd was disappointing.

MacDonald is very candid about what he sees as the crux of the problem. "The pep rallies are meant to spur interest, and they always turn into shouting matches. It's a selfish thing; there's no support for athletics. We're not a community," he says.

Not only are our 3,300 students not a community, MacDonald says, but also the teams themselves lack overall pride. "There's a lot of selfishness in each sport. It's a sign of the times, but the school could do way better with support," he laments. I remember [at] Blair decades ago; you used to see the football team sit together at basketball games, and vice versa. They used to have a bigger network of friends than they do now. We lack that community feel here."

Something, he says, that up county schools have. "Not only is the lack of support is societal, but it's a community thing. Sherwood, Blake; they're communities."

A lot of that can likely be attributed to money, something that families up county have more of than most Blazer parents. Up-county families with more disposable income can afford to send their eight-year olds to recreational leagues together, while Blair families cannot. The inherent income gap between the schools allows more affluent parents to support athletics than the poorer ones can.

21.3 percent of Blair's student body qualifies for Free and Reduced Meals (FARMs), far more than Sherwood (9.2 percent), Blake (10.9) or Damascus (5.5). When one-fifth of the school can't afford to pay $2.05 for lunch, how can they afford to play in youth leagues in third grade?

Also, many of the fans at the Sherwood and Blake football games seem to be parents, who didn't have to worry about making money and could afford the time and cash to attend sporting events. A lot of the visiting crowds at Blair basketball games are up-county parents; most of Blair's fans are students.

Hoelman says that not only do the youth teams help players; they also build fans at a young age. "Damascus and Sherwood, for example, have such good youth programs; it helps educate fans who go to games because their friends play. And then when they go to high school, they're into watching the sport," he says

Athletic Director Dale Miller, who led Blair's boys' basketball team to multiple state titles in the 1970s, shrugged off that theory, saying that it's harder for us to draw fans because Silver Spring has so much more to offer. "If you live up in Damascus, for example, you've got nothing else to do but go to games."

Miller, however, did agree that quality recreational leagues breed success on the field and in the stands. "Winning equals attendance, and a lot of those schools have good neighborhood youth programs that we don't."

What the four of us seem to agree upon is, as crass and ignorant as it sounds, our diversity hurts us when it comes to supporting our major teams. Miller says "We're so diverse, that a lot of students here don't like football or care about it. Blair's made up of so many different groups of people that attending games isn't the social thing to do school-wide."

It's a tough order to fill; increasing awareness of all our sports teams without gentrifying the school and sucking it of any culture and diversity. A start would be to use the pep rallies to promote real "pep" for our athletes, instead of as a forum to boo the freshmen. MacDonald's proposal of a yearly assembly for all the athletes to discuss how important it is to show support for all the other teams and to form an athletic identity at Blair again is terrific.

And most of all, Blair needs to make football and basketball cool again. The football team has highlights on Info Flow every week, but there's no grassroots promotion of each game. The teams feel distant and separated from the school, but at the same time indistinguishable from any other event going on at Blair.

MacDonald says that, compared to when he was a student, "athletes aren't admired today the same way." There seems to be no aura around the football team; it's not that they're not nice guys, but they don't give off that `big men on campus' feel. We need the football players to be athletes on Friday night, and marketing executives the rest of the week.

And winning isn't everything, either. As McDonald mentioned, we have "two state champion runners, [Ashley and Halsey] Sinclair. And nobody knows who they are!" That's not the fault of the Sinclairs', whom McDonald calls "the best athletes in the school." Rather, the Athletic Department's promotion of them is a farce.

Although, to be honest, the AD isn't the only place where the promotional ball is being dropped. Halsey Sinclair just won the county championships a few weeks ago, running five kilometers in 18:59. But there were no announcements at school until Silver Chips came out today. Sinclair deserved timelier and better recognition for her accomplishment.

We need our best athletes on the biggest teams to make it cool to watch sports at Blair again. If they can't stand up and be proud of their game, then why should we? But if they want to support each other, then we as students should show them love in the same way.

As corny as it sounds, it's about school unity. And it's about making Blazer Stadium on a Friday night the best place in Silver Spring once again.