By Jayna Hill Posted June 3, 2009
“Every crowd is different,” stated David Eastman, the starting point guard of the Lowry High School varsity boy’s basketball team, “some gyms are easy to play in, and others are like trying to walk up an escalator on its way down.”
Often crowds can be quite obnoxious. Here at Lowry High School, we see a loud crowd, mostly composed of students that greatly support athletes, who do not stop even when their team is down. But, when the team is winning the rest of the crowd seems to also join in the action. It is a two-way street, the liveliness of the crowd depends on the success of the team, while the success of the team then plays off of the crowd. The crowd can boost the morale of the players, and even give them more energy; “I love the crowd, they pump my adrenaline so I don’t have to,” said Eastman.
The energy in the crowd seems to bring the energy of the team playing up. As a varsity cheerleader at Lowry, I have noticed that the team has more energy when more people are watching them play. When the crowd is cheering, and the gym is unbearably loud, the team has a boost of energy, and a will to play harder.
Not only does a crowd boost team sports but also individual sports such as wrestling; “before the match you see this big crowd and it makes you want to wrestle better,” said wrestler Tanner Schmidt. Schmidt also felt that having the state wrestling tournament at home helped their team a lot. “We had a lot more support, you have a lot of people there rooting for you; it’s like any kind of sport when you play on your home turf,” added Schmidt.
