By Tessa Nacke
Fountain Valley High School’s (FVHS) annual Glow Show has not been rescheduled for this year. There has already been a significant gap in the tradition. The 2020 Glow Show was canceled due to COVID-19 restrictions, and it was canceled in 2021 by the request of former football coach Chris Anderson.
Hayato Yuuki, assistant principal of activities and athletics, shared the reason that Glow Show would not be returning to FVHS.
“We had to have the activities calendar already planned out, and it just wasn’t in the activities calendar,” Yuuki said. “We haven’t had it for a few years…we didn’t have it even the year before me. So that was never in my plan to have it.”
There are various opinions about this decision.
“I definitely am sad and disappointed that we couldn’t be able to do [the Glow Show], especially for my senior year,” senior varsity cheer captain Vivian Hennessey said. “Having one last round would be nice, especially after not having it for the past few years.”
Senior drumline member Nathan Werner shares a similar sentiment to Hennessey.
“I am definitely sad about it,” Werner said. “Especially since it would be my only chance to perform with drumline [at the Glow Show].”
Clearly, this decision has sparked some sadness in the seniors, who won’t be able to experience it again. Will this removal affect student culture at FVHS?
The answers range across the board. Some think it could impact it drastically, while others feel it could make little to no change at all.
Some believe student culture is a vital part of high school. It is what links everyone together as people come to support the same teams, causes and friends.
“If I was a freshman, I would think, ‘what is the point of going to other events if this one is canceled?’” Werner said.
Hennessey also values how events like Glow Show contribute to student culture.
“I think it’s hard…the kids that kind of missed out on the spirit because of COVID don’t really know how to pick it up again,” Hennessey said. “I think it’s harder to pick it up the further we go without [Glow Show].”
Yuuki, on the other hand, feels differently.
“I don’t think it’ll impact [student culture] much because, again, a lot of our kids don’t know what it is or what it was because they’ve never had it their time here at Fountain Valley,” Yuuki said.
Bell Week is by far one of the most spirited weeks out of the whole school year. The Bell Week is the week before the Bell Game, a big rivalry game between FVHS and Edison High School. There are dress up days, contests and usually, a Glow Show.
The Glow Show, started by Kirk Kennedy and Joe Fraser in 2012, was created to provide a more energetic atmosphere in preparation for the Bell Game. Held on the Thursday night before the Bell Game, this unorthodox pep rally was very different from normal daytime assemblies.
“I do think it’s something that makes the Bell Game so fun,” Hennessey said. “I feel like [there’ll] be a different environment around a game that might not be as big of an event even though it is our big rivalry game.”
Glow Show is known for the fun and hype with large glow sticks that the Associated Student Body passes out. Students would crowd into the bowl and enjoy performances from the color guard, dance team, pep squad and drumline. The football players would give a speech and get the crowd excited. It was a hallmark tradition at FVHS.
According to Werner, Glow Show was “really fun and super hype…It was so cool to experience.”
It provided an effect that was exactly what Fraser was trying to achieve.
“I just want to make it accessible to everyone. When you go to a college, you see everyone wearing one color, feeling spirited and supporting their school,” Fraser said, when creating the event in 2012. “I want to create that here at Fountain Valley.”
When everyone comes and supports a common cause, or in this case—a team, people all become united to lift the team up.
“Student culture is probably one of the most important [things] to me,” Yuuki said. “It [was] one of the most important things when I first started to come here last year…coming back from COVID. We knew that [rebuilding it] was going to be a problem.”
Yuuki explains that COVID-19 restricted many things, school culture included. Pre-COVID-19, FVHS used to be the one of most spirited schools. He hopes that even without Glow Show, FVHS could still bring back that spirit.
“So what I hope to accomplish is basically just go all in, everybody being all in, efforts to help rebuild, rebrand, just transition back to what it was a few years ago,” Yuuki said.
This year’s decision to leave Glow Show off the calendar was made to rebuild student culture by encouraging student participation in other school events. It leaves many feeling unfulfilled in absence of the tradition, while others may not feel as much of an effect.
Only time will tell whether there will be an assembly that takes the place of the Glow Show—one that will still pump up the crowd for the Bell Game, which will be held at Orange Coast College on Oct. 21, 2022.
