In a school that houses over three thousand students from across 42 square miles in Montgomery County, you would expect more than 30 students at a senior night game right?… right?

This is the unfortunate reality of North Penn High School sports right now. A perennial powerhouse of a school in almost all sports struggles to fill up student sections that used to be a struggle to find standing room. 

I’ve found myself at increasingly more high school games recently, both as a fan and a writer. There’s something pure about the high school level of play; it has more character and isa more raw game than you would find from the major levels of each sport. Each team becomes more fun to watch the longer you see them play, and you start to pick up on the things they do that make them who they are. It really is a community, from the players to the parents, to the fans, to the student section. 

That brings us to the problem. Aside from football games, it’s become rare to see a large student section at any type of home game, and even at those games, a school the size of ours should be able to fill up more than a third of the area set aside for students. From the perspective of a player, I can attest to the fact that there’s nothing like seeing people come out to support you and your team, and even better to see your fellow classmates there.

I know it’s possible to fill the football student section because the homecoming game consistently fills up the student section: three columns of bleachers packed full with students at every game and students who have never seen a football game before. Some, including myself, would argue that’s the best game to attend, highly due to the huge student body and simply the energy that amount of people brings to the table. We’ve all seen the TikTok’s of the rowdy student sections in stadiums and gymnasiums; the potential for North Penn to be similar to those is definitely there if more than 5% of the student body attended games.

“On that fourth down – I could feel my skin vibrate by how much noise (our student) section was making compared to the other student section. Our student section is amazing,” Senior Aidan Eves said after a huge win over Central Bucks South. The effect of a strong student section is clearly evident, you heard it from a player. People do come out to games, (mostly football) but the consistency and variety of sports is lacking.

I understand sports aren’t everyone’s thing, but the games are entertaining even to the untrained eye. At the end of the day, it mostly becomes about the experience of being at the games, with your friends, watching your classmates play. Attending sports is just another part of the high school experience, and we only have four years (three really) to be students in the student section before you’re just a random in the stands.