Interesting recent piece in The Lawrence (school newspaper) by J. Cai. Among other issues he laments the “clear lack of school spirit” at Lawrenceville.
Based on my experience attending various New England Prep School athletic contests, I would rate the Deerfield students as the most spirited particularly when it comes to hockey. On the other hand, Exeter is kind of quiet with football crowds really disappointing considering Exeter’s very impressive football stadium.
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About Lawrenceville in particular, I think students have the most “spirit” for their house and I guess that takes away from their actual school spirit
I’ve heard Choate has A LOT of hype around football
Can’t find the article to read or comment on. Are you sharing a concern about L’ville school spirit or soliciting perspectives on school spirit at other schools, particularly NE schools?
I think it also depends on the day of the event. We’ve been to games during the weekday, not a ton of school spirit on display. We’ve been to games on the weekend and the school spirit had to be monitored by the teachers because it was becoming overly exuberant.
Ime, most students love their school. But spirit is not always so apparent at games because everyone is so busy playing that they can’t make it to each other’s games.
I definitely recall that when teams traveled together, they cheered for each other. Or that a team that had finished its own game would suddenly fill the stands at a game in progress. And I also recall (with great fondness) the students who would arrive at away playoff games (semi-finals and finals) in the “fan van”, having chosen support for their friends over sleeping in Saturday morning.
Huge school spirit at Salisbury, especially for football, hockey, and lacrosse. It’s true that the fan base at a game can seem light because often all the teams are playing at the same time. However, they get big turnouts for, say, a Saturday evening hockey or lacrosse game (kids, parents, and faculty families). The kids love the school generally and support each other and will watch each other’s games when possible, and there will be a fan bus for certain rivalry games. There’s often a festive atmosphere, and as a parent it’s fun to watch a game even if my son isn’t playing.
I watched a livestream of a hockey game at Deerfield and it was OUTRAGEOUS!
My son recently graduated from Lawrenceville, and actually was surprised to read your conclusion. I couldn’t find the J Cai article on the Lawrence website. So if you have it, please share.
Anyway, my experience with Lville athletics has been exactly the opposite. In fact the school offers multiple live streams for the various sporting events for parents who cannot travel. All of the helmet sports have pretty good attendance. Even the non-helmet sports, a fair number of spectators join in. As pointed out above, House sports takes front stage – especially House olympics.
To top it off, each year there is a weekend of sports against their arch rival (Hill School). This takes place each fall and the entire weekend is devoted to sports. The school spirit at Lville is on par with most other boarding schools that we visited.
I think for most schools, the rival week/weekend is amazing for school spirit.
The Peddie/Blair rivalry is so much fun/so exciting!
We have been to Lville for non-helmet sports as parents of an opposing team and see lots of spirit on all sides.
It’s fun to see how much the kids get into the school rivalries.
The article by J Cai is called A CLOSER LOOK AT THE 2018-2019 STUDENT COUNCIL
Thanks for your comments. The article is on The Lawrence website. Looking forward to seeing the new Lawrenceville Field House in the near future.
I took a look at the article. It was mostly about the Student Council.