Christian Orozco
Staff Writer
If it wasn’t for the football players walking around in their jerseys, or the cheerleaders walking around with their pom poms, one might have mistaken the pep rally for a party with the blasting hip-hop music presented by Power 106 and DJ Nibblez.
Close to 50 loyal Leopard football fans showed up for the Leopards’ pep rally for their first home game, against Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, at Ortmayer Stadium.
“We have to have school pride, even if our football team is not the best,” freshman political science major Richie Orozco said.
“We still have to come and support.”
The pep rally began at 6 p.m. and was put together by the Movement and Sports Science Society.
Early attendees took full advantage of the free food. The first 200 attendees received free Leopard football shirts. The Power 106 stand offered free posters, CDs and stickers.
Attendees were able to catch a glimpse of ULV’s dance team do their hip-hop performance to T-Pain’s single “Take Your Shirt Off.”
The dance proved to be a hit and got the pep rally off on the right foot.
“It was really good, I was surprised how good the dance team was,” said sophomore biology major Peter Marquez.
The first of the speakers at the rally was athletic director Julie Kline.
Kline pushed the importance of students attending all of the university’s sporting events.
“It is up to the fans to come and support,” said Kline. “It will only improve our athletic teams.”
The next speaker was president Devorah Lieberman.
“Believe it or not, but I used to be a cheerleader,” Lieberman said. “And a year from today I will perform a cheer for all of you guys.”
The final speaker was ULV’s new football coach, Chris Krich.
“It is great that the university is doing this for this team,” said Krich.
With the University trying to put spirit back into Leopard football, the Leopards are ready to show the Southern California Intercollegiate Conference what Leopard football is all about.
Krich was able to give the Leopard fans a taste of what it is like to be a ULV football player by interacting with the crowd and doing an enthusiasm drill.
The name of the drill was “opera house” and the object of the drill was just to be louder than everyone else.
Krich was able to show that he is here to have fun and also showed much needed optimism to a team that has started off the season winless.
The pep rally accomplished its main goal by getting the ULV students to come out and support the Leopards.
“The pep rally was fun and I got to see what the new coach is like and now I’m pretty excited to see how they do tomorrow,” said Marquez.
Christian Orozco can be reached at christian.orozco@laverne.edu.
