School Spirit Soars With New Falcon Force Faces

Bright lights shine down onto the field at Peter P. Bollinger ’58 Stadium. The players on the CB football team begin to line up and take formation. The play is soon approaching, but something seems to be missing.

All of a sudden from the front of the student section comes a loud roar and the beginning of a cheer to get the energy flowing.

P-A-R-T-Y, Party, Party’s on our side!

The cheer begins to awaken the crowd and more chants are heard with each passing second.

Where is the party?

The noise drowns out the whistles and shouts coming from the field.

The party’s over here! 

Students erupt in applause as the play begins and the football takes flight across the field.

The party is indeed on our side, especially with the new edition of Falcon Force. Every year a new group of individuals are chosen to take on the mantle of bringing spirit to the school in a variety of ways. Whether it be the rallies before a major CB event or reviving the student section after the other team scores a touchdown, no matter the situation, Falcon Force puts in a lot of work to make sure that these events become memorable and enjoyable for the student body.

In getting to know what Falcon Force is all about, I figured I would start with observing how they go about their business. I inquired with some of the members about sitting in on their meeting to plan the rally. At first I was denied entrance, as they needed to “lock in”. If at first you don’t succeed, try again, because the second time around I was granted access to the coveted meeting during all school lunch. 

I took a seat and listened intently to the discussion at hand: the Homecoming rally, an important order of business, as the controversial choice of theme of “lettuce” really put them to work in creating games that were unique and on theme. Immediately they planned out the order, roles, and events of the rally and cranked out a schedule for the events of said rally in about 30 minutes. Purely being an outsider to everything going on, I got the impression that these spirited students mean business.

By the time the next week rolled around, the Homecoming stock had increased and it was the talk of the town. As some came in still a little critical of the lettuce theme, Falcon Force was still at work tweaking this rally, and I was even told that everything I heard at the meeting was changing for the real deal. I was a little excited to see what the big change to the rally was, and by the time it commenced, I noticed immediately what was different. 

Knighting a new Freddy Falcon, changes to the relay game, the green carpet, and school-wide participation proved that statement right. Falcon Force changed quite a bit from the meeting I sat in on, and I think their effort equated to a successful rally that got people excited for the weekend’s events.

With my formal observation out of the way, I am really intrigued with Falcon Force as a whole. Even though I would never find myself on the mic in front of the whole school, I think having a student-run committee that gets the whole student body involved is a wonderful opportunity.

Sofia O’Connell’s (‘24) entire motivation to join Falcon Force was simply a change of pace. “It looked fun. I kind of wanted something else to do.” She also cited that the fashion of Falcon Force was also a draw to her. “When I was a freshman they had the white overalls with the handprints and I was like ‘that looks kinda fun.’” The new look this year was the multi-colored jersey, which the group designed themselves.

It seems that the group drafts ideas, throws them at the wall, and sees what sticks. It’s a team effort above all, and they all pitch in at various points to take charge and to make the hype moments happen. “If there’s a rally we figure out who wants to do the relay race or who wants to introduce homecoming royalty,” Sofia says. “We all just work together to try and plan stuff.” 

Planning these rallies and game events takes work. But ensuring that the school shows their spirit does too, which seems to be the biggest struggle for the group so far. “People just haven’t responded greatly to us,” she says. “It’s hard because last year’s Falcon Force was amazing.”

Despite the struggles, Sofia’s favorite aspect about working on this crew is the crew themselves. “I love the group — they’re so cool.” With some of her friends departing for college this year, having this opportunity allowed her to still find a community on campus. 

“Obviously there’s a little bit of stress here and there, but I think for the most part it’s just a lot of fun. It’s what we’re here for — school spirit.”

Eli Davis’ (‘24) motivation to join in on the fun is his love for Falcon Force Moderator Mr. Josh Hammer ‘12, which he previously expressed for the Talon. “It seemed fun. I get to spend more time with Mr. Hammer,” Eli says. Eli’s love for the religion teacher is not the only reason for participation, though — Eli’s enthusiasm and volume seem to also play a part in his desire to be center stage.

“I’m also just like a loud person and it felt like a loud person’s job,” the senior says. “It’s a fun group. It’s kind of chaotic, you just never know what’s gonna happen or what ideas people are gonna come up with.”

While there aren’t designated jobs on Falcon Force, it seems that Eli’s duty has to stay off the record. As I inquired what said job entails, he seems to want to plead the fifth. “I can’t reveal that to the public,” he asserts. 

Parker Clymer-Engelhart (‘24) seems to have his theory that Eli’s work involves Freddy in some way, but Eli can only leave us to speculate. “It’s a rumor,” Parker claims. Well leave it at that and not try to spread any of these rumors, for Freddy’s sake.

Their planning and prep time seems to be paying off in terms of improving the rallies, but people still find issues with the student section at some of our home games. “At the end of the day, we can only bounce off [the student section], and if they’re not into it, it’s hard for us to get into it,” Eli says. “We don’t want to do cheers and get hype if they’re just gonna stand there and do nothing.”

He concludes with what has gone right for the squad this year, “Our unveiling of Freddy went really well. That last rally was probably the best thing we’ve done so far, and then the women’s flag football. People got really into it, which made it a lot of fun.” 

Nathan Carrasco’s (‘24) intrigue of Falcon Force started as a bit, but quickly turned into actual interest. “We had always joked about it, and then it kind of become a more serious topic that me and Madelyn Dong (‘24) would talk about,” he shares. “I was pretty good friends with Nolan Fernandez ‘23 — that kind of inspired me because I look up to him a lot. I kind of wanted to follow in his footsteps.”

Nathan’s job as commissioner isn’t too different from the rest of the group, but the commissioners do have more conversations with Mr. Hammer and fellow moderator Mrs. Cecilia Powers. “We are the ones that clear things with them and take it back to the group,” Nathan says. “We generally try to lead the discussion and the meetings and stuff. There’s not really that big of a difference between us and the regular members.”

Nathan has taken more initiative to try and keep activities fun and fresh. “The last rally, I took it upon myself to come up with a rough draft for the rally, like the plan.” He then shared his brainstorming with the group and received either a positive or negative response.

Despite taking up the leadership mantle, he finds the tomfoolery to be a bonus of being on Falcon Force. “I think it’s fun to be able to mess around — we have all these resources on our hands.” It seems that even with the supervision of two staff members, the students seem to take charge and do what they want without much intervention. But they still have their limits.

“If you think about it like the American government, we’re the Congress, and Mr. Hammer and Mrs. Powers are like the President,” Nathan says. “We can come up with all the laws and stuff, then they can veto it if they don’t like it.”

Nathan shares that the goal of the year is to simply survive. But on a more serious note, it’s all about having fun. “Our job is to try and bring spirit.”

His biggest achievement on a personal level is the fact that he’s out there spreading the CB spirit and “having the [courage] to get out there and do that, which I hardly have.” His role in the skit was also another highlight for him. “My favorite part was riding out on the horse with the jester hat. I think that skit went really well.”

Nathan leaves me with a hope of new and cool things to come. “I know that we have definitely not done the bestest of jobs. I know that a lot of people have an opinion on us,“ he says. “We’re going keep trying our best, but it’s hard.”

It’s not hard to root for this squad. It’s certain that these Falcons put in the work and effort to really bring our student body more fun and joy. So when Falcon Force starts up a cheer at the next home game, join along in the fun and show the rivals that the P-A-R-T-Y is over here.