Your View: Bleacher response

Dear Mr. Moore,

We, the undersigned, have several comments on your January 11, 2006, column about the lack of participation and spirit put forth by the Bleacher Bums and the Red Peppers.

The Bleacher Bums were officially established in 2000-2001. Before establishment, "in the good ole days," not only were the Bums unofficial, but they also developed a bad reputation. Members were consistently late to games and could be counted upon to disgrace our school system. Because of bad behavior in the winter of 2000, the Bums appointed a sponsor and presented a constitution to the school district and became officially affiliated with the school. Now, the Bums can be counted upon to provide entertainment and spirit at every Friday basketball game. Indeed they do still come in "droves." Before the game against Fredericktown, the Bums and Red Peppers were in full force. T-shirts were created and sold with "Beat the Bluejays" and worn at the Sikeston-Charleston game. On Friday, December 16, the Bums traveled to the Notre Dame-Sikeston district basketball game with spray-painted red hair to support our team. Do you really think we don't have spirit? Maybe we do put our studies first on school nights, but you can expect Red Peppers and Bums to be in full force every Friday. Have you attended any of these games?

We, the Red Peppers and Bleacher Bums, still have plenty of spirit, but now we have sportsmanship, too. We represent our school and our community and are now well-respected, something that couldn't be said when you were in high school. Your ill-researched comments are both offensive and false.

Sincerely,

Senior Red Peppers and Bums.

While the spirit of the Bums should be admired at Friday games, the point of the column was to show that school spirit should not just be displayed on Friday nights, but on other nights as well. And also, the column was pointing out that compared to the turnouts in the past, there aren't as many students coming to games. To have just a handful of Bleacher Bums and Red Peppers at a home basketball game against a district opponent on a Tuesday does not show school spirit in our opinion. Other local schools don't seem to have any problem balancing schoolwork and games on school nights and Bleacher Bums and Red Peppers of the past did not as well. The column was written to inspire more school spirit and to get more students to attend games.