By: Logan Becker
When you go to an athletic event here at DDHS, students have the pleasure of being able to enter the mythical place known as the “student section.” Dreamt about by middle schoolers and elementary students alike, the student section (as the name suggests) is where all the home team’s highschool students gather to cheer on their team to victory. As simple as it seems, the rowdy retreat is much more complicated than one usually thinks. A strict hierarchy of who gets to sit where is enforced by the passionate seniors. The seating goes as follows: seniors are in the front, juniors behind them, then sophomores, and if there’s any room left, it goes to the freshmen, or “freshies” as the juniors and seniors so lovingly call us.
I’ve always wondered what it was like to be in the heart of the student section, and hopefully, I’m not alone in this thought. I set out to find how much different the front row or senior section is from the back freshman section. I employed a freshman spy, who will remain anonymous, to infiltrate the senior section. This, along with research I’ve conducted, has shown striking differences between the senior section and all other sections.
My spy reported that the senior section is “pretty cool, and a lot more entertaining than other sections.” I’ve also received similar reviews from other freshmen who managed to sneak their way in. For my own research, I measured decibel readings from the front and back of the student section. A decibel reading basically measures how loud a noise is, which I think is a valid way to determine how much more hype the front has than the back. For instance, a second period social studies classroom has a reading of about 86 decibels. The readings I measured were from the volleyball game against Beloit Turner two Tuesdays ago. I was surprised to see the difference was staggering.
The front of the student section had an average reading of about 121 decibels, which is more than twenty decibels louder than the back of the student section which had an average of 96 decibels. I’d never to this point realized there was this much of a gap between how intense the students were in the two sections.
But being the loudest doesn’t always translate to being the most fun, so I investigated some more. Most students tend to be found having fun sitting with their friends at home games, so I took that into account and asked 5 random students where their friends usually sit. It was a dead tie right up until the last person, but it seems out of the five students most could find their friends sitting in the back. That being said, the students interviewed were a mix of freshmen, juniors, and seniors.
All in all, it really just comes down to personal preference. I love to sit with my friends, but there’s nothing quite like jumping up and down in some standing-room-only bleachers with some over caffeinated teenagers. The memories some people make in the student section stick with students for a long time to come, no matter if you’re in the front with the seniors, or in the back with the freshmen.
thecometeer