Just Cheer

Shuttle service isn’t the only thing being scaled back this year. Last week, the College Events Board announced that instead of hiring a high-profile performer for the Harvard-Yale pep rally, it’s opting for a more low-key event focused on student performances and the football team. But you know what? I’m still really excited about it. And it’s not because I am a huge fan of the football team or because I can’t wait to see the Dance Step team in action. In fact, I don’t have any specific reasons for being so eager to take part in this celebration of school pride—I just happen to enjoy the experience of being at a pep rally.

My excitement has nothing to do with any natural emotional loyalty to educational institutions or their sports teams. I’ll be the first to admit that I simply don’t identify with whatever feelings prompt my friends at other schools to post rallying cries such as "Go Cats! F**k ’em up!" on their Facebook statuses. I cannot claim more than a moderate interest in football as a sport, and I probably won’t fall apart if Harvard doesn’t win the Ivy League championship. But the great thing about school spirit is that it requires no rationale or justification. I deck myself out in Harvard gear and cheer loudly at games mainly because I feel it’s the appropriate thing to do at a school event—and because it’s fun.

If this seems like a totally illogical line of thinking, it may be because the entire concept of "school pride" is inherently irrational. "Spirit" is a manifestation of camaraderie among individuals who may very well have nothing in common except for shared affiliation with a group, be it to a college, a House, or a class year. All too often I hear fellow Harvard students trying to treat spiritedness as if it needs a deeper explanation—"I think there would be so much more House spirit if housing was nonrandomized and I could live with people who shared my interests." They don’t seem to realize that the whole point of House spirit is to connect students who wouldn’t otherwise have anything to do with each other. As contrived as it may seem, House spirit and school spirit enrich undergraduate life by encouraging a sense of community among otherwise highly individualistic people. It’s nice to feel a sense of solidarity within the student body that doesn’t come from complaining about how much work we all have.

If we choose to, we can make all sorts of excuses for not having school spirit: We won’t have a big-name artist at our pep rally to be excited about, tailgate rules at Harvard are too puritanical, we’re too cynical to mindlessly demonstrate support for our school. Getting an outside performer for the pep rally or allowing kegs at tailgates may make those events more appealing, but it doesn’t create school spirit. Last year I could barely see Girl Talk during his abbreviated time onstage, and the frigid weather made it difficult to hang around the tailgate parties for very long. And on the day of the Game, most of my friends missed the one and only touchdown scored because they came five minutes late. But none of it mattered all that much, because the real excitement of these school events comes from being surrounded by a huge cheering crowd of other Harvard students during one of the few times we aren’t embarrassed to be sporting head-to-toe insignia clothing. Students themselves create that intangible electricity in the air that constitutes "spirit."

So on a chilly Thursday night in November, I’ll be making my way up to the Yard without any concern for the entertainment value of the pep rally itself. I’ll go because there are few other occasions that allow me to shelve my self-consciously independent tendencies and wholeheartedly yell out silly chants, hopefully joined by a crowd of fellow students bold enough get in touch with their rah-rah side.

Adrienne Y. Lee ’12, a Crimson editorial writer, lives in Quincy House.