Loyola has started a new program this year to increase school spirit on campus, but it raises the issue of why such a program even needed to be formed to rile students up about school activities.

The Maroon Platoon was created with the intent of raising attendance at events, particularly sports games. As part of it, Loyola t-shirts and other items will be given out as incentive for attending.

Low attendance rates at games are not a new issue at Loyola. Even with a number of competing athletic teams, many of which have been well ranked in past seasons or been at the top of their division, there have been few instances of events with big crowds.
For this reason, creating the Maroon Platoon is a laudable idea.

But Loyola has a small population, with many students who don’t view sports as their main outlet for school spirit. In this regard, the university should reevaluate what it considers school spirit, and to a greater extent, school pride.

Many Loyola students find school spirit in other aspects of the university. The social justice tradition allows students to receive an education of the whole self. Loyola graduates leave the university and go on to effect change in many sectors.

Students may not be attending games in large numbers, but they are getting an education that is unavailable at a lot of other universities. This is the sense of school spirit that the university should continue to foster.