Over the past few years, the student sections of Paly home games have been slowly decreasing in size.

Despite this, there has been peak of student attendance has been at home football games and basketball games against Gunn.

At these events the crowd is crazy and you can feel the energy in the stands. For many athletes, this is the highlight of their athletic career. Unfortunately, these types of nights only happen a couple times a year and only for a couple of sports.

The Viking staff believes that there needs to be systematic changes in order to encourage greater attendance at Paly sporting events.

For years now, Paly has had an extremely strong sports program and the talented athletes at our school deserve more support and appreciation. Paly sports consistently have success in league play against other public schools and compete extremely well with advantaged private schools.

For example, in 2010 both Football and Volleyball won state championships along with four CCS titles. This kind of success is unprecedented for a public school.

It’s time for Paly students and members of the Palo Alto community to recognize the talent Paly sports feature, and to show support with greater attendance at sporting events.

The student sections at Paly home games need something to get them going. For one, students need to take more responsibility and simply attend more games independant of large social events.

Additionally, Administration and the Athletic Department need to publicize games more often and for more sports. Last year, two Paly vs. Gunn boys basketball games were publicized as “Quad Night” and the student attendance was overwhelming and impressive.

On October 6th, a home volleyball game was publicized using the “Viking Cup”, a competition where athletes could win prizes for supporting fellow athletes. Again, the crowd’s energy was amazing and Paly won the game against Los Gatos.

These three events were very effective and the idea of publicizing sports events like these need to be extended. Games like these need to happen much more often, perhaps once every couple of weeks, and less mainstream sports need to be recognized as well.

Playing in a game that has great crowd support and an electric atmosphere is an absolutely amazing experience. All of Paly’s athletes deserve this kind of support and it’s time we start giving it to them.