Fans and supporters of sports teams are an integral component to Friday night football and basketball games, playing a massive role in the community’s engagement.

There’s a good amount of work that goes into planning and managing the fans, whether it’s getting people to show up or just simply planning a fun theme. That’s where social media and the Superfans, a group of students who go to each game and engage the crowd in various chants, come in.

A source who requested to stay anonymous is part of a group that runs the @Sustangszn Instagram account. The account works to create hype, share themes and incorporate the community into the various activities that happen at the games. This source helps manage the account and makes sure the community is involved.

“Well, we like to take ideas from students, like for example, we have ‘almost Friday,’ and we get student submissions and things like that. We kind of get themes for sports games and stuff; we go around and ask people what they think a good theme would be. So we’re kind of using other people’s ideas to help us,” anonymous said.

Sporting almost 3,000 followers, @Sustangszn gets passed down each year to the current senior class. Having been around since 2018, the intent of the account has stayed the same.

“I think our main goal is kind of to promote the sports events and get people at a sporting event. And kind of have fun and smack talk with schools and rivals and stuff,” anonymous said.

Part of the success of the account works in tandem with the Superfans, a group of students who go to each game and engage the crowd in various chants.

P.E. teacher and co-sponsor Adam Petersen manages the Superfans during the football season, and he speaks to the goal of the group.

“…Who are some of the boys and girls that we trust more than other seniors, but they’re ones that kind of attend meetings and everything, and they’re super festive, just want to kind of travel and go to different games to cheer on the different sports teams. They more so try to get the rest of the fan section involved and engaged more so I mean, I’ve been just going to football games … They were in charge and stuff, trying to get the dry erase board going with a different chant and then running them up to try to get the freshmen involved,” Petersen said.

The Superfans and @Sustangszn both work together to create hype among fans.

“Yeah, we have that group of Superfans, while everyone that goes to games is considered a Superfan. But we have a group that leads the Superfans, and that group is kind of incorporated with that account. So it’s like, we talk and make sure that all the ideas are good,” anonymous said.

Petersen notices the positive effects that the influencers can have.

“So we’ve been bringing garbage cans out there at the end of games for football, and there’s been a pretty good handful of kids staying to clean up. I know CMG has actually made a comment that it’s been much cleaner up there. So that’s, I mean, I think that reflects well on the influencers,” Petersen said.

Ultimately, the source hopes that the account will be seen as an example of community and spirit.

“I want it to be more like a promotion of the school [although] it’s not affiliated with the school, but to promote and try to get people to get more involved in sporting events because I know there’s rules with stuff that we can and can’t do at sporting events. So the more people that we can get there, the louder we can be to support our sporting teams and stuff like that,” anonymous said.

There is a lot of work that goes into creating a community, whether it’s through the rallying of the fans or as simple as creating a theme that everyone will engage in.