Karlee Avery

It’s no doubt that student sections make or break the atmosphere of Friday night football, and Tupelo’s seems to make it every week.

Something about a student body coming together to cheer for their peers on the field is electrifying. From themed games to the famous ESPN cheer, Tupelo High School’s student section is one to be admired. The variety of themes keeps things fresh and you never know what’s coming next. Only three games into the 2015 season, our student section has had a beach theme and a white out. The beach theme, where students brought out their Hawaiian shirts and floaties, was at Corinth. Having themed games when Tupelo plays on the road draws students to those games and makes for an awesome atmosphere, even without the homefield advantage. For our first home game of the season, we had a whiteout against Shannon. Everyone wore white and packets of baby powder were passed out. At the end of the ESPN cheer, the packets were ripped open and powder was thrown everywhere making a cloud of white that was a sight to see.

The hype grabbed the attention of people across the state when pictures of the student section throwing the powder spread like wildfire on Twitter. Tupelo’s Sports Information Director Braden Bishop (@tbradenbishop) tweeted the pictures and said, “I’ve been at @TupeloHigh 6 years and I’ve never seen an atmosphere like last night. Pride is FOREVER. #themblankets”. An anonymous Twitter account that tweets student-submitted drama, jokes, opinions, or just smack talk about high schools in Mississippi (@SMACKHighMS) named THS’s student section the Student Section of the Week after the whiteout and said “Congrats to the Dirty- T!! We felt the energy in this student section!”

You might be wondering who is in charge of organizing the student section shenanigans and to that I say: Meet the TUPELO Boys. These six senior guys are the hype guys. They make sure everyone is pumped and come up with the themes for each game. They run out with the football team and then make their way to the stands to lead the section in cheers. The TUPELO Boys also do their best to show love to every sport by going to all different games and events and encouraging other students to do the same. This year’s TUPELO Boys are Lee Holman (T), Alex Scruggs (U), Austin Bouchillon (P), Isaac Tullos (E), Martavious Young (L) and Garrett Mcgee (O).

“Our role is just to make sure all the students are paying attention and having a good time and enjoying the game,” Bouchillon said. “If students enjoy the game and have a good time it helps our football team out.”

Holman agreed and added, “We just try to get the crowd to get more into the game and do the cheers.”

So does a student section really affect the game and the players? Rdarious Edwards, Tupelo’s cornerback, says it does.

“It makes us football players more comfortable,” Edwards said. “It helps knowing we have fans behind us.”

Senior left tackle Reed Sanders agrees, especially when it comes to away games.

“It’s good having a lot of support at away games,” he said. “Not a lot of students do that for other schools.”

“It’s a whole lot of fun at home games when you have the whole crowd plus the student section,” Sanders added.

Whether it’s on our own turf at Renasant Field or on the road facing opponents, Tupelo’s student section likes to show up and show out, and that’s the Wave Effect.