The crowd. The noise. The lights. It is Friday night football in Texas and this game is more intense than the others. The stands are packed with both sides of Rhodes Stadium filled with students in navy, orange or red. School rivalries have been present since the beginning of sports competition in education. They promote pride and unity in each individual school and extra motivation to beat the other competitor. Senior Scotty Belin, junior Kat Ibarra and sophomore Hannah Ryan promote school spirit and rivalry.

“I think having school spirit is pretty important because you have to show that you are invested in your school,” said Ryan.

As the school mascot, Ryan is one of the major proponents of school spirit and believes that Tompkins biggest rival is Katy High School. She thinks that it is fostered the most through football. While Tompkins has not had huge success in defeating the Tigers on the football field, throughout the years when they have faced Katy, fans have filled the bleachers and cheered with excitement. Other sports, however, have fiercely competed and beaten Katy on numerous occasions. These include soccer, basketball and others.

“I always think any individual could gain more spirit, but I think as a school we could have a lot more spirit,” said Ryan.

Belin also believes that Tompkins fiercest competitor are the Katy Tigers. He thinks that Tompkins spirit is increasing because of the recent success of the football team and that spirit will continue to rise as the team wins more games and competes in playoffs. He thinks that school spirit is very important to one’s involvement in their school, and that it will increase if there are more ways for students to get involved.

“I think it is important to have school spirit, it is your home for four years, you might as well be proud of it,” said Belin.

Ibarra, however, believes that Tompkins’ main rival is the Seven Lakes Spartans that began four years ago, a year after Tompkins first opened. She thinks that this rivalry is most present in football, especially this year with a win against them in season play. Two times that Tompkins beat Seven Lakes in football were momentous and will be remembered by the Tompkins students for years. She thinks that school spirit is an important aspect of not only sports, but school in general.

“I think school spirit is very important because as an athlete it motivates me to perform better and make my school proud,” said Ibarra.