I am personally a senior in high school who is very passionate about sports and supporting my friends. This year that opportunity to support our fellow classmates was stripped from us. COVID-19 has had a great impact on many people, especially people in athletics. These athletes put in so much work day in and day out just to get the opportunity to shine on game day. Game day is usually an experience like none other, a day where everyone around you is hyping you up for your moment to shine, a day where everyone comes out to support you and cheer you on. However this game day experience isn’t the same now, LPS students are not allowed to attend games this year. This takes away so many great experiences from high schoolers. As many people know high school student bodies create a student section in which everyone dresses up for a theme and comes to support their classmates, this experience has been taken away. The experience for the athletes has also been taken away, as many of them use the student section as a way to get pumped up for their game and use the students as encouragement throughout the game. I personally think this is cheating students out of some of the best high school experiences, especially the seniors this year. The seniors have spent 3 long years working for their opportunity to play at the varsity level and now that they got here, the excitement around them has just disappeared because students aren’t allowed to go. On top of all this students are still going to school in person and seeing each other outside of school all the time, so I don’t understand why letting a couple hundred students gather to cheer on their team is not allowed. We are gathered in groups this size at school everyday so what does it hurt to let us do something positive, and go cheer on our friends. I ask that everyone who reads this deeply considers signing the petition to allow students at high school sports in Lincoln, Nebraska. It means a lot that you have read this and are considering signing. 

thank you,

Jacob Oehm, a Lincoln high school student who just wants their high school experience to be awesome