This year I have tried to be the last student to leave every OPRF sporting event that I have attended.

I decided to undertake this challenge because I thought it would be fun way to cement my memory of each event.

In the past, I only went to two or three OPRF sporting events per year. It feels like I owe OPRF more school spirit because I have not exhibited it in the past. Now it almost feels like I have an obligation to attend as many games as possible. Not just because I’m the sports editor, but because I am a senior.

This is my last chance to see my friends or people whom I know play sports that I like watching. I feel as though I am making up for lost time, and that I need to go to at least one game from every sport before I graduate.

So far I have been to three football games, three hockey games, two girls volleyball games, and three boys soccer games. I have stayed until the end of each one, where I then patiently wait for the crowd to clear out. There is something about the slowly enveloping silence that gives my mind time to digest what I just saw. Every student leaves almost immediately after the end of the game, so I only have to wait about 10 minutes to be the last student to leave.

Unfortunately, I have not been entirely successful with this endeavor, having only been the last student to leave a football game once and a hockey game twice. I have now been removed by security a total of three times at the end of these games.

At the end of the football game versus Glenbard West, I sprinted up into the top corner of the bleachers and looked down at all of the students filing out. Initially, I was very happy because things seemed to be going as planned. But this sensation immediately disappeared as soon as a security guard started shouting at me, “Hey buddy, you gotta leave!”

Still sitting in the top row of the bleachers, I pretended to not hear her. It was only until another security guard came up and tapped me on the shoulder that I left the field, but I had been the last student from that section to exit.

So far I have been able to hear head coach John Hoerster’s post-game words to his team after a blowout loss, and the security guards at the hockey games complaining about the frenzy that the crowd was in during the third period of the game against Lane Tech. Then there was the night I was walking through the stands post-football game when I could hear groups of parents grousing about the poor officiating.

It seems as though school spirit is high this year compared to years past, likely because we are coming off a year where we could not attend sporting events; people are even going to the hockey games. I know that I took these events for granted in the past, but this experience has helped me realize how important they are to the school and student body.