More than the tests, more than the grades, more than the lockers, passed notes, and perhaps even more than prom - pep rallies defined the high school experience.  As gymnasium bleachers are unfurled, students file in and cheerleaders grab their pom poms in order to inject a little "spirit" into everyone, urging them to attend the "big game" to support "the school."

Pep rallies are viewed differently by each crowd, or clique if you will - and perhaps that all depended on where they sat.  The jocks, if not on center stage are usually at least front and center, getting knowing winks from the cheerleaders on the floor.  Sections were usually divided by class - Freshman, Sophomore, Juniors and Seniors, each decorated with banners ranging from "Go Team!" to "Freshmen suck!"  Within each section, much like the lunch room, groups sat amongst their own.  The geeks were with the geeks; the loners were with... themselves; the rebels, if they were in attendance at all, were either jeering from the back or under the bleachers with... well, let's not go there.  Much like lunch-time, there were also "in-betweens."  You know them; the semi-geeks, the sorta-jocks, the almost-loners and partial-rebels that sat in-between and on the fringe of the various groups.

The pep band plays the school fight song in its best and brightest fashion, along with the usual repertoire of enthusiastic and motivating, yet often out-dated classics, such as "Eye of the Tiger" (or pretty much anything from Rocky , the theme to Peter Dunn , and many, many others throughout the years...  Of course, what would the pep rally be without the cheerleaders?  The shouting, the chanting, the hooting and hollering would not be possible would it not be for the brave souls willing enough to don a short mini-skirt to do cartwheels, back flips just to get us "pumped up."  The pinnacle of the pep rally?  Probably the performance based on an appropriately remixed dance song.  During the 80s and 90s, songs from C+C Music Factory, Bobby Brown, and New Kids on the Block were deeply imprinted into memories of cheer squads around the U.S.

While pep rallies may not have been on the top of every student's list of things they wanted to do, the activities surrounding it put at least a little bit of spirit into anyone around it.  Go Team, GO!