The Sain's: Community Pep Rally

If I felt like I ever wasn’t involved in the football program at Hebron…I am now making up for that times 100. At Hebron they had a wonderful booster club that did everything plus some for the team and coaches; Brinkley is a completely different story. They have had a booster club, but they really haven’t ever done anything besides work the concession stand. The president, who is a teacher at the school and has a senior on the team, said that Michael has just given everything a new life. She said she was never motivated to do anything because nothing came of it, but mine and Michael’s enthusiasm has made her want to do everything she can. At the start of the summer Michael, Jana (booster president), any myself decided to go out into the community and try to get donations for the program through ad sales. We’re making posters with the football schedule and all business logos who donated, as well as a board with company logos at the entrance and around the fence on inside the stadium. It made such an impact by the three of us dividing and conquering. Getting out there and meeting people and talking to them about what’s going on with the program really made people interested. Doing that, we raised over $3000 and had local businesses, churches and fans sign up to feed the whole team, Junior and Senior High, before every game. All of this is just unheard of for this area and these boys love every minute of it. We even had parents ask to have a fish fry for the boys after the first week of summer practice. So as these boys are finishing practice on a Friday, they are greeted by 5 parents frying catfish, fries and hush puppies for them.

One of our goals this year has been to really get the town involved in football again, because lately, support has been lacking. In the midst of our sales filled summer, Jana and myself decided to have what we are now calling the first annual Community pep rally. The first game this season is on Sept. 2 and happens to be against their biggest rival, the Clarendon Lions. If you’re familiar with the Battle of the Axe between Lewisville and Marcus you will have an understanding. We decided to schedule the pep rally on August 19 because it’s 2 weeks prior to the big game and the Friday after the first full week of school. Next was just trying to figure out how to get people there since Brinkley hasn’t ever had a community pep rally. Jana and me met once a week to discuss what we wanted to do and how we were going to do it. We decided that we needed to get the Mayor involved, so I went to his office the next morning and asked him if he’d be willing to talk at the pep rally and encourage the town to paint Brinkley Black and Gold before every game by hanging posters and painting the windows of their shops the day of a game. Of course he said absolutely and helped us out by spreading the word at council meetings and such. I wrote a couple of articles for the newspaper announcing the details of the pep rally and had our churches make mention of it to help spread the word.

We decided to have the pep rally at regular game time to get everyone used to the schedule, 7:00 on a Friday night. We contemplated having it on the field, but thought that it might be better to have it a neutral site so people felt more involved, we decided the downtown city park was the site.

Michael and I were driving to the pep rally that night and when we were just about to turn the corner I looked at him and said, “I sure hope people show up” and right when we turned that corner I was amazed. People showed up in groves. There was nowhere to park and so many people already standing out there. Jana said she arrived at 5:30 and people were already there claiming seats. What a site. All Michael’s boys, Jr. and Sr. high were standing there in their jersey’s just smiling ear to ear. I can’t even imagine how special they must have felt. We had school clubs out there selling waters, hotdogs, Home of a Tiger yard signs, and t-shirts. The pep rally started right at 7pm and we had the Mayor start off with his spill about community involvement on Friday nights and painting the town black and gold., and then Jana introduced herself and our new Superintendent and Principal. We invited the peewee cheerleaders to come and perform, so they did one of their cute little cheers before passing the microphone off to one of the senior players who introduced Coach Sain. Michael talked a little about their summer workouts, the start of practices and how proud he was of the boys. He then called out every one of the Jr. and Sr. High boys by their first and last name and their position. This made a huge impact on everyone. I was praying he wouldn’t forget one of their names, but I should have known that he wouldn’t. I was so proud of him at that moment because I could just see the joy in his face and each of theirs. I can’t wait to see Michael in his first year of being a head coach, with just one other coach on staff, turn this whole program around. Anyway, back to the pep rally, we had about 5 other senior players speak about the upcoming season, and we were a little nervous about this. In the past we were told that they’ve gotten up there and said things that, for lack of better words, made them seem uneducated, so we somewhat scripted them to make sure that didn’t happen. Well, they did a great job and represented the team well. Next we had the Jr. and Sr. high cheerleaders perform, and then had the band play the Alma Mater in closing. Everything went better than expected had everyone talking. The mayor came up to me afterwards just beaming and kept saying how this is just what this town needed and how he thanked us for giving Brinkley it’s spirit back. Even at church people were stopping us telling us how amazing the pep rally was and how impressed they were that Michael knew everyone of those boys’ names.

After the showing for the pep rally, I have no doubt in my mind that on September 2^nd those stands will be full for the first time in several years. Watch out Lions!!!