Image source: Hammond high School Football Team

By Kemi Osamiluyi

News Editor

School Spirit

It is a crucial part of a school’s reputation and raises the morale and pride students have in their school. However, over the past few years, we have seen a sharp decrease in the confidence and overall spirit of Hammond students when it comes to sports, competitions, and challenges.

Hammond High School is known for its impressively high school spirit levels. Whether that be high participation in Spirit Week dress up days, or our bustling student section during games and matches, Hammond has had an unbeatable reputation across Howard County for awesome school spirit. But lately Hammond school spirit has seemed to decline. Why and how did school spirit start to go downhill?

The Pandemic Decline

Many teachers recall Hammond Spirit Weeks pre-pandemic. They reminisce on the excited faces of students as they decorated their class hallways and painted their murals. Practically any teacher you ask who worked at Hammond before Covid can attest to the significant drop in school spirit levels post Covid. Even our Spirit Weeks have been scaled down.

Mr. Livieratos, Student Government Association (SGA) Sponsor and AP Social Studies Teacher, talks a bit on this topic. “I think overall the spirit is still there. We have one of the best Spirit Weeks in the country, and I think we still do–I will stand by that today, that this week’s Spirit Week was the best in Howard County…but in general I think there is still a lack, or decline compared to where we were pre-Covid.”

“The Core is Still There.”

When interviewed about Hammond’s decrease in school spirit level SGA President and Tennis Captain, Sohan Modi, agrees to have seen a decline in motivation. “If you stack it up against previous years, there’s going to be some things that went worse and some things that went better.” He recommends that in order to increase our school spirit levels to what they once were, we should continue providing students with numerous opportunities to get involved and have some fun. Despite these disparities, he touches on the importance of acknowledging our school’s successes. “I thought this year’s Spirit Week went absolutely great. From the hallway decorating, to the murals, to Battle of the Classes, Pizza Wars, and the Pep Rally.” He described the various activities available for Hammond students to participate in this past Homecoming Spirit Week. In totality, he believes that the goal of providing kids with opportunities to have fun was accomplished this year. “The core of it is making sure every student here has a ton of fun; and I feel like we were able to accomplish that this year.”

Sports, however, are another matter. ‘Of course we lost, we’re Hammond.’

It is a phrase commonly heard coming from the mouths of Hammond students from every grade level. Sohan agrees that this is an extremely negative ideology. “I hate that, you know. There are a ton of things that Hammond is very accomplished in, and you can’t focus on the things we’re trying to improve on now. But you can always see the improvement happening, and you always can see that there’s a lot of things that we’re incredibly accomplished at.” 

The Dangers of a “Pre-defeat Mentality”

By convincing ourselves that we will lose a match or game because “We’re Hammond ” is accepting defeat and allowing our opponents to beat us before we have even faced them. This mentality seals the deal on our success as a school. I consider this to be a “Pre-defeat mentality”. In contrast, however, if we were to instead encourage our student athletes and competitors to strive for success in everything they do, they would be more likely to enter a game with a winning mentality.

Can Girls Basketball Change that Mentality? 

Sohan then gave a shout out to Girls Basketball, calling them a great team, highlighting their undefeated season this year. “There’s no ‘Of course we lost, we’re Hammond’. There’s ‘Of course we won we’re Hammond’ And you can kind of see that philosophy spread in not just the sports, but you can see improvement going everywhere.”

However, one section of Hammond’s community that is constantly acknowledged for their hard work and dedication is the Hammond Girls Basketball team. So how does confidence play into their reign over the Howard County Basketball community?