Two seconds left, WS down by one, the shot goes up. IT’S GOOD! And the crowd goes…silent?

The loud and encouraging cheers courtesy of the cheerleading team usually heard during basketball games at WS are no more. Winter cheerleading is the next school sponsored sport to vanish into oblivion.

At the beginning of the school year, people couldn’t believe their ears when they heard that yet another school sponsored activity had been cut.  Especially for basketball players, taking away the cheerleaders is like taking away some of the excitement of the game. The basketball players will miss the back-flips after successful free-throw attempts, they will miss their continuous support (especially when they are losing), and they will miss enthralling and exhilarating half-time routines that pump up our crowd.

Surely the fans will miss them the most. They will no longer have someone to lead them in cheers (thus the name “cheerleader”) and will be missing the vital enthusiasm required to support their team through the good games and bad games. Not only that, but the crowd will have to work twice as hard in order to make up for the quietness of the gym. Like the day after a home football game, people will emerge from the gym with hoarse voices.

So if the basketball players cannot have cheerleaders and their crowd has lost their voices, who will support the basketball players besides their teammates? We think this desperate situation calls for the return of the Spartan mascot.

Although the cheerleaders will always be the true Spartan support squad, a mascot is the next best thing. A mascot would bring out the loudest and proudest cheers from the crowd and encourage more people to come watch our games. A mascot would help the players keep a positive outlook on their games, even when they’re losing.

The expenses it would require to have a school mascot would be…nothing. The school already has a costume that it could use at basketball games and WS is the home of many spirited Spartans who would be perfect for the job.

If winter cheerleading must be cut, the basketball players need something to provide their games with extra school spirit and excitement that will be lost. We need a mascot.