Being excited is awesome. There is something truly wonderful contained in the feeling of excitement. Coming to college, after the monotonous final days of high school, I was thrilled: new classes, new teachers, new people, new parties, and new opportunities. In essence, entering this new era of my life, I was excited about the chance to have things to get excited about.
So far, as a first year student, all those things I was looking forward to have enlivened me. I've met a slew of new people, begun classes more interesting than those of high school, and have been starting to take part in the vast activities on campus.
It would be sweet if we, at Bowdoin, had something to get really hyped up about. Something that once in a while brings the vitality on campus to craziness. There's Ivies, there are occasional hockey games, but sitting here in the fall, what is there?
In my opinion, there is something: football games. It seems that football games at Bowdoin have been written off, that people don't think it's cool to go to them, or that they won't be fun. I say that is false.
Are football games here going to be as entertaining as they are at the University of Michigan where 110,000 people are crammed into the Big House? No, of course not, and the students here obviously don't mind because they chose a school of 1,700 over a large or state university. That does not mean, though, that there is no intrinsic value in our football games (I wouldn't try to promote the student body to attend, say, a billiards match). Bowdoin football games are a perfectly good forum for fun if people want them to be—everyone just needs to be on the same page.
Take a party, for example: If everybody attending is expecting to have a good time and get crazy, then the party will be fun. Games work the same way. If people all decide they are going to get really into it and have a great time, then they do. I think back to my senior year of high school. I went to a small high school (about 150 kids per grade) with great academics, and yes, sparsely attended sporting events.
On homecoming weekend, though, seniors sent a memo to the student body to all come to the game, get excited and wear black.
It worked: Friday night came, hundreds of rowdy kids came out, and we had a great time.
Our team played their best all season, pumped up by the crowd, and I left thinking, "That was a great time; why can't we do that every game?"
The Polar Bears aren't going to be on ESPN. College Gameday won't be shot live in our parking lot. We do, however, have a competitive team with a bunch of returning talent and new recruits, Whittier Field (a beautiful old stadium), and a chance to play in the best Division III conference in America against talented rival colleges.
There are certainly setbacks, namely, that Bowdoin students are so busy; we have a lot of things to do on a Saturday afternoon. There's dance practice to attend, books to read, articles to write. But there also is this great opportunity for excitement and fun right in front of us if we all, collectively, grab it.
Bowdoin students have a subtle, but strong sense of school spirit: we are happy and proud to be Polar Bears.
But the idea of extroverted school spirit is something that students here seem resigned to not have.
Yet we can have it if we choose to and I implore the school to make an attempt. Especially the Class of 2015—establish a tradition. Make it cool to get together as a class and a school, get enthusiastic and have fun.
Let's show some Polar Bear pride: rock our Bowdoin hats and sweatshirts and lead chants. Let's do it starting tomorrow. Plus, for all our sake, create something—besides a Saturday night campus-wide—exciting for the weekends.
Ted Romney is a member of the Class of 2015.