Boar Pen Returns

boarpen

What many students have taken to calling “the resurging Boar Pen” has lately been sweeping Choate’s home athletic contests. Boar Pen has traditionally been a senior-led group aiming to increase school spirit. This year’s Boar Pen, however, seems to be different. The group has already started to make its presence known on campus.

The biggest change to Boar Pen regards its inclusiveness. In recent years, Boar Pen has been more of a senior clique: know the right people and you’re cool enough to cheer on the teams. Now, Boar Pen is garnering Choaties from every form and shifting its image to be known as the “Choate Mob,” as O’Neil Brown ’16, the president of Boar Pen, puts it.

A lack of school spirit from the senior class has been a general pattern in the past years: seniors simply do not have the time to be ever-present and cheering on the side lines. Moreover, Boar Pen has historically struggled to maintain high energy and vibrant school spirit through the year, a phenomenon that Brown calls the “roller-coaster phenomenon.”

For example, after a surge of Boar Pen activity at major school events, such as Deerfield Day, the energy quickly dies down and sometimes never comes back. To maintain and sustain the healthy and energetic school spirit, Boar Pen needs more than just seniors who are often overwhelmed with work and responsibilities. Brown hopes that after Boar Pen establishes a strong base with senior members, the group will be able to start an “application process” that selects a boy and a girl representative from each form.

Boar Pen has also expanded on social media. To ensure the active status of Boar Pen, the group created an Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter account, which will allow Boar Pen to efficiently inform Choate students of any upcoming events that Boar Pen and Choate Athletics are holding. Having well over 400 followers on Instagram and adding almost every Choate student on Facebook, Boar Pen seems to be progressing and succeeding in its goal to keep the Choate community updated and excited.

Perhaps Boar Pen’s most remarkable change this year is that it is no longer solely associated with the Athletics Department. In fact, around the end of last year, Boar Pen had been reaching out to the Arts Department. The next big upcoming event that Boar Pen has on its schedule is the Choate Fringe Festival. By acknowledging that there are students, such as those in the Arts Concentration Program, who are not part of a sports team, Boar Pen is making an effort to embrace the whole Choate community. As Patrick O’Leary’16, a member of Boar Pen, explained, “When the plays and musicals come around, we want to fill every seat in the PMAC.”

All this substantial effort that Boar Pen has put forth has given itself “credibility and brand, and made Boar Pen important in students’ lives” as Mr. James Yanelli, the faculty advisor of Boar Pen, stated. However, Boar Pen still faces a few obstacles along its journey. The issue for Boar Pen every year, Mr. Yanelli mentioned, is the fact that all kids are busy at Choate. However, Brown sees it differently. He believes that Boar Pen’s biggest obstacle is the fact that Boar Pen is limited to which games it can officially promote. “Boar Pen cannot sponsor every game,” stated Brown. “Imagine on any given Saturday where there are six, seven games. Dividing everyone into groups for each of them is simply impossible and ineffective.” He continued, “What we do is to get everyone together, cheer for a game for a half or a quarter period, and move to the next game.”

Brown emphasized that Boar Pen is not discouraging people to show up to a game of their choice. In fact, for every home game, a Boar Pen representative is present, whether to support the Choate team with their friends or to tweet the scores. He promised that Boar Pen will eventually get to every team, even the thirds’ teams: “It is just that Boar Pen has its schedule.” 

“Every school community manifests its school spirit differently. It is not about the number of students or their decibel,” said Mr. Yanelli. Regardless of the form of the school spirit, its significance cannot be emphasized enough. O’Leary’16 showed his thought, “School spirit is important because when you see people supporting you, you become energized. It hypes you up. But most importantly, it makes you feel appreciated by knowing that what you’re doing, whether out on the athletic fields or courts, or on the stage, is valued by the community.” Through broadening its inclusiveness, Boar Pen is now holding every Choaties accountable for the school spirit. As a former president of Boar Pen Isabella Crane ‘15 strongly stated, “Boar Pen failing is a school problem, not an administrative problem.”

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