Electric Prospect student section takes home state title
May 4, 2022
Junior Alyssa Degan knew it was possible for Prospect to win the student section state showdown. Something about the feeling of walking into a group of happy, supportive, and welcoming people can turn a good experience into a great one, as seen by the Prospect Underground.
Nevertheless, Degan was completely shaken up on March 17 when she found out that the win wasn’t just a possibility, it was now reality.
“I was sitting in math class and then over the loudspeaker, he announced it and my jaw dropped,” Degan said.
Prospect’s student section, known as the Underground or the U, goes above and beyond most other schools, not only top-tier energy and pride at sports events, but also so much inclusiveness and involvement within all different aspects of the community.
“I just get really excited going to sit in the student section knowing that I’m going to be included and it will always be a lot of fun … because we are actually united as a school,” freshman Lucy Neumann said.
Student section leader Jake Terpins thinks that the Best Buddies basketball game is the perfect example of how our student section stands out. The best buddies game is one of the many volunteer events that Prospect’s U creates.
“We had so many people there, it was the most people I had ever seen at a basketball game for high school. It was just rallying behind a good cause,” Terpins said.
Specifically, this game allows students that are a part of the URise community, a group of students with special needs, to play alongside the basketball players.
“It’s just amazing what Prospect has done, not only for its students but also for the community in general,” Terpins said.
Many members of the PHS student body would agree that the enthusiasm towards each and every event is incomparable.
Each year IHSA holds a competition for all student sections of schools in Illinois. Schools are asked to make a short video showing what their student section means to them and its key values. Multiple students got on the job of recording all the footage they could at every school sponsored event.
Degan then had to take on the responsibility of putting all the clips together and creating the experience of the U within a video. Degan’s goal for the video was to encapsulate what the student section is as a whole.
“I wanted to show all the different components of our student body, using lots of hype videos and community service clips,” Degan said.
Degan explained the tedious work that went into creating the final product of the video, lots of deleting, redoing, and repeating.
Assistant Principal Frank Mirandola and her critiqued it back and forth for days until they were satisfied with the outcome.
Becoming a finalist in the competition was already a huge honor to PHS, especially since there are 800 other schools within IHSA. Soon enough, Degan and Mirandola received the news that they won. For the first time since 2015, Prospect took the title of the winners of the IHSA student section showdown.
“It wasn’t just me that won, it was the whole school,” Degan said. “I just made the video that went [in the competition] … It was really a whole student body win.”
William Ross Kellin PHS 67 • May 7, 2022 at 9:55 am
Wow…soooo cool. I am a PHS Alumni, 1967. Actually I am one with a special circumstance. I loved Prospect. I loved everything about that school. I was on the football team, wrestling team, baseball team, SGA, I was class Ugly Man as a junior. I went to every dance. Every build a float for homecoming. I was in choir and that school was and still is so much a part of my life. I was and am a Knight. During the 1966 summer before my senior year, my father came to me with tears in his eyes. He told me we had to move. He had lost the banks mortgage on our house. He knew what that would mean to me. It broke my heart. What about my friends that I had grown up with, what about my teams, what about my girlfriend. Yes it was sad. My friends held a surprize going away beach party for me at Tower Beach in Winnetka on Lake Michigan. My girlfriend who was the most beautiful girl in PHS 66 broke up with me and married her new boyfriend from Northern I.U., and after a year of college I joined the Marines and went to VietNam. After all of that i have to admit there was one good outcome of the move. My father picked up a new job in Fort Lauderdale, Florida…not a bad second choice and i walked on to the football team and we went to State that year. My friends drove down for spring break in 67 and we flew to Nassau, Bahamas for a getaway. But even as a Marine in Nam I was then, now and always a KNIGHT!!!
Krzysztof Lesiak PHS 2015 • Sep 26, 2022 at 3:07 pm
William, first of all, thanks for your service to this great nation. Land of the free, because of the Brave, like you yourself.
Secondly, yes PHS is special, all of us who went there agree that once a Knight, always a Knight. One of my main tenets in my campaign for Mount Prospect Village Trustee in April 2023 will be to make PHS the number one ranked high school in the United States by the major ranking publications like U.S. News & World Report. It won’t be easy – but nothing worth the effort is – as a Marine you already know this, sir.
If it weren’t for the teaching expertise and skill of Jason Block, Journalism teacher at PHS, I would not be the writer I am today. Jason Block is the best teacher at PHS as far as I’m concerned, however I’m biased since journalism and writing is my life.
Take care William and may Jehovah God Bless you and all of America’s veterans.