After COVID-19, SHS athletic events have decreased in student attendance in part due to the decision to make students pay to get into games again. As a result, the support for teams from students and other athletes is slowly going away.
But, boy’s basketball head coach Ben Rhoades reached out to girl’s volleyball head coach Chelsea Hoffman to try to make a change to increase fan support. It’s called Court Support.
“We can always say Covid this, Covid that, but we gotta get the support back somehow, so we’re gonna start here,” Hoffman said.
The agreement between the two coaches established that the boy’s basketball team would attend two home games for volleyball and be a part of the student section and vice versa for the girl’s volleyball team.
Immediately it was a success. Hoffman believes having a student section can completely sway the way a game goes. She and her players feel they play better when there’s a crowd cheering.
“I think we have more energy with more people there, and it just gets us more excited to play,” sophomore Marlee Chafin said.
The boy’s basketball team felt no different. Rhoades says that his team attending the games increases team chemistry while everyone is also having fun supporting each other.
“It’s fun because everybody shows up, and we bring the energy (and) be loud, (and) every time we come it’s always a good game,” junior Sam Lloyd said.
In Hoffman’s eyes, the goal is to have the boy’s basketball team start encouraging others to go to not just volleyball games, but any SHS event.
She expresses that if the team is having fun, then others will see them having fun and want to come to more and more games.
“We have this Fieldhouse, we need to fill it,” Hoffman said.
Long-term, the coaches want more sports to get involved and support each other. Going further than just athletes, they want to bring in more students as well.
“Our hope is in the next couple years, maybe we go to more and more games and the kids want to go see each other play, not just when we have a special night for it,” Rhoades said.
