Team Excitement: Go Team?
By: Emma Melendez
We’ve all witnessed heart wrenching losses when athletes walk away in defeat, coaches shake their heads wishing the game had gone their way, and fans sigh with disappointment. In these dire moments, we need something to unite us, someone to step up, a “go-to” player that can raise the intensity and bring Lehigh one step closer to a win. What we need is “Team Excitement.” This fall, Lehigh Athletics developed a program in which students “Get paid to watch Lehigh sports!” Team Excitement is a work study program designed to enhance crowd participation and bring Lehigh PRIDE to the next level. Lehigh “PRIDE” is a leadership program that helps student athletes build a support network of faculty, staff and peers, but also has turned into a Lehigh Athletic slogan to promote student athlete unity and school spirit.
Whether you desperately need the beer money, want to improve your resume, or feel like playing an important role in bringing the Lehigh community closer, Team Excitement needs you. But in what sense do paid fans create a better Lehigh environment? In fact, it may be more damaging to the morale of our athletes than anything else.
Travis Spencer, the founder of Team Excitement, said this program is designed to “create a more energetic Lehigh PRIDE environment surrounding our athletic events.” So far, Team Excitement is targeted towards football and basketball games, which are the attendance-driven sports, but Travis hopes that over time, Team Excitement will branch out and spread the cheerleading and positive energy to more sports. “We need a buzz to win during the playoffs, and that involves creating a better energy,” Travis explains. The bottom line: Lehigh is not showing enough PRIDE lately, and the individuals who rise to the challenge and apply to Team Excitement are going to make that difference between winning and losing. In another view, students are getting paid to sit on the sidelines and cheer for a couple of hours. It might seem a bit tiring, but think of the athletes who are actually playing the game.
So far, only two students have applied for Team Excitement, but hopefully people will realize that if they are energetic, enthusiastic, and passionate about Lehigh Athletics, there is a spot for them! Not to mention, this position speaks volumes on a resume. Indeed, being on Team Excitement does improve your resume; you could simply say you got paid to cheer for the school you’re passionate about. Doesn’t that show potential employers all the valuable skills and capabilities you hold? At the very least, they will know that you’re capable of uniting a crowd of spectators in cheers (maybe inebriated ones, but spectators none the less).
It’s not all fun and games though; there are rules. Lehigh has a zero-tolerance policy toward engaging with the opposing team or fans in an inappropriate manner, otherwise just keep it classy, and try not to make the cheerleaders jealous of your incredible cheering skills. Lehigh is always striving to improve campus unity, and with Team Excitement, everyone will cheer and chant together making Lehigh an even closer community. Soon, by the end of every game, all will stand and sing “Kum Bah Ya” or the Lehigh fight song.
As an athlete at Lehigh, knowing there are paid fans sitting at my game is a little degrading. Any athlete should be disappointed that this absurd program is so disrespectful towards what we are passionate about. I certainly don’t know of any other schools that pay their fans. Maybe if Lehigh used the money for more scholarships, there would be a stronger athletic program and the “buzz” problem would take care of itself. Team Excitement is making the joke of “you pay your friends to hang out with you” into a reality.
Team Excitement has a long road ahead of drawing in those dedicated cheerleaders or sports fanatics who just crave that intense atmosphere. But even if these fans scream their heads off, student athletes are still essentially being mocked. When the team loses, the fans don’t share in the agony of defeat. They take their eight bucks and move on. At the end of the game, it is not about Lehigh PRIDE, it is more of a degrading experience for the student athletes.
