Many of the students at FHC find themselves under the Ranger stadium lights on Friday nights. 

The excitement of the game leads to extreme amounts of cheering, chants, and socializing, but one thing that has been continuously overlooked is the music.

The music at FHC football games is run by former Major League Baseball player and JV baseball coach, John Vander Wal. Just last year, he had the idea of playing different popular songs in between timeouts, quarters, and other breaks in the game as a way to get the crowd involved and excited.

“From my professional days playing baseball, professional baseball scouting across America, and finally a cold Friday night football game, I have learned that there is nothing like crowd participation,” John said. “What better way to get the crowd involved than music!”

Our student section leaders do an amazing job of getting everyone involved and excited for the game. With this being said, there has been controversy between them over whether the music ends up helping or hurting the vibes of the student section. 

“It makes it more fun and makes everyone more excited,” senior section leader Dailey Tucker said. “Everyone just gets loud when we can all hear the music.”

Unlike Dailey, senior section leader Anthony Ott said, “I haven’t really noticed music being played during our games. To me, it [music] is only for the dance team.”

One major issue with the music is not that it isn’t being played, but it isn’t being played loud enough for the crowd to be able to sing along and enjoy. Not only has the dance team had trouble hearing their music, especially with the noise of the crowd in front of them, but the student section seems to be so focused on the game that the music doesn’t even phase them.

“Sometimes we can’t really hear the music because the speakers are so bad,” Dailey said, “but I feel like the student section reacts well when they can all hear it and are listening for it.”

The variety of songs played at the games has been able to satisfy the needs of many people in the crowd. They have expressed the songs that they love hearing at games along with the songs they hate hearing. The most popular song is “Sweet Caroline” by Neil Diamond, and one common song that the student body doesn’t particularly enjoy is “We Will Rock You” by Queen. John has done a great job at figuring out what songs to play at what times to get the best responses from the crowd.

“He loves to play “Sweet Caroline” in the middle and everyone knows the words to that song, so it feels like a unity type of thing,” senior Ava Redmond said. “We win a lot, so at the end of the game, it is more of a “go-team” type of music that gets us excited and happy about the outcome of the game.”

Since bringing music to the games is a relatively new idea, many students have expressed what kinds of music they would want to hear in the future in order to get the spectators on their feet. A popular suggestion is playing more throwback and songs from the early 2000s along with more rap and hip-hop.

“When we win, I would love to hear DJ Khaled’s “All I Do Is Win” because it is such a fun song and everyone knows it,” Ava said. “I think we just need more music at the beginning, especially when everyone is walking in. I think it should be less crowd and more getting in the spirit to be loud and rowdy.”

As we head into our final regular season game this Friday, keep your eyes on the field as you watch the game, but definitely don’t forget to keep your ears open for all the fun songs to come.