Juniors hope to boost school spirit with introduction of ‘O-Men’

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Courtesy of Don Frugé

Juniors Pope Mallette, Kurre Luber, Carson Gentry, Clayton Daniels, Stetson Ponder, Eli Wicker, Jackson Roy and Don Frugé stand and smile in the student section during this year’s Crosstown Classic. These juniors wanted to create a student section tradition in order to boost school spirit.

Eli Solinger, Staff Writer

OHS’s school spirit and student section has a new addition this year. The O-Men is a group of OHS male students, mostly in the class of 2020. They show school spirit around the school, especially at football games, but the group is in no way associated with the school.

“We wanted to get the school spirit up for football so that hopefully there will be more for other sports,” O-Men member and junior Don Frugé said. “We hope to be able to make an environment where every team at Oxford has the best chance of winning and the support to do that.”

According to Frugé, they pick people based on if they are willing to have school spirit, scream and yell for the Chargers no matter what the score and love Oxford. The O-Men usually consist of six or eight guys every single time. The number depends on if they want to paint the word ‘Oxford’ or ‘Chargers.’ In the future, the O-Men members want this to continue to be a tradition among students at Oxford High.

“I hope it will become a tradition. It is awesome to see our school get into games and events, and I think that the O-Men help make that happen,” Frugé said.

The O-Men painted their chests the first game of the season, and after that, the school started to notice them. According to Assistant Principal Nikki Logan, the O-Men were introduced during the first pep rally of the year, and after that, they started to go to games and show spirit around the school regularly.

“I like it. I feel like we get the students more involved in it, and I feel like we get everybody hyped up,” O-Men member and junior Jacob Rousseau said.

The O-Men were recognized at Oxford Intermediate School during a pep rally on Sept. 21. The group has also created a twitter account called ‘OZONE.’ According to Logan, the twitter account is being totally positive and showing great school spirit.

“That junior class is just a strong group of kids who support each other,” Logan said.

The team started of with no way association with the school, but over the last couple of weeks, they have been noticed and will start to run out with the football team. According to Rousseau, they have been to every home game and will go to every away game.

“The kids are all good kids. They are excited about supporting their peers at school. They are excited about winning,” Logan said. “The fact that they are juniors, hopefully, they will be back again next year to do the same thing.”