In my high school experience, I have attended at least ten state tournaments representing the Benilde-St. Margaret’s Red Knights. The energy and electricity of the boys’ state hockey tournament last year can’t compare to any other event of high school thus far: students crammed into the Xcel seats, wearing incredible amounts of red and white and cheering––screaming, really––for our boys until the final buzzer.

Since then, however, the BSM student fan section has grown more insensitive and less supportive of athletic teams in their cheers. In fact, it’s really disappointing.

Becoming a superfan no longer means showing up for the sake of the team; instead, students compete to see who can come up with the most ridiculous cheers. These unrelated chants and comebacks no longer say, “Hey, I care about this sport and I want this team to recognize that,” but rather suggest that all we Red Knights are after is a “Rudest Fan Section” award.

Now, this isn’t to say that all of BSM’s chants cross the line. However, the ones that do so really embarrass the reputation of our school and create a negative image of our student body. Take the boys’ hockey game against Hill-Murray of this season, for example. While students began with the traditional “Red Knights, Red Knights” cheers, the tone rapidly shifted to personal attacks on the Pioneers’ goalie and the opposing fans.

No one person is to blame; the entire fan body shares the guilt for these thoughtless chants, myself included. We Red Knights leave a legacy for the rising classes, and the example we’re setting both to these younger students and to other schools lacks the maturity expected from Benilde-St. Margaret’s.

As a student body, we can attend sporting events without being insulting towards the other team. As dedicated fans, our energy is better spent cheering for us, not against other teams. I’m all for all-out, crazy, get wild cheers for the sake of the team. But at this point in BSM’s fan history, our cheers go way too far.