The North Allegheny Tigers Football team is always the most looked forward to sport for the students. And for those kids who are not on the team, the student section or on the cheer team is a way to still be part of the experience.

Any football games that you go to are loud and NA games are no exception. Sophomore football player Jakob Burns says, “For football, you need to adapt to the loud noises while playing with. It’s not like some other sports where you don’t want any noise at all.” 

So does that mean that they like playing with all the noise? Are they able to drown it out or would it be easier to concentrate if there wasn’t so much of it?

Burns says, “It would definitely be a lot easier to play football in a quiet atmosphere. There are many examples that would say it is easier.”  He also says, “During games, it’s not the student section that’s the problem. They are far enough away that it doesn’t bother us. It’s the cheerleaders who are right behind us that can be annoying sometimes.” 

Cheerleaders are at football games to get the crowd excited. They are there so that the crowd will never go silent. But many football players say that the cheerleaders can get a little too loud sometimes. 

The cheerleaders also stand behind the players bench so the players hear everything that they say. And this can affect the team on the field. 

Burns says, “It’s not that they are annoying, it’s that it’s hard to hear plays get called or hear the coach trying to talk to us on the field.” Communication is key in football so if the players don’t know the play because they couldn’t hear it, that can cause a lot of problems.

In most sports, like golf for example, it needs to be completely quiet for players to concentrate. But in football, there is this expectation that the loud noise is a good thing. And with the North Allegheny Tigers football team starting off the season hot at 6-1, maybe it is a good thing. 

Many players say that the loud noise on big plays gets them even more pumped for the next play and that it helps them play better. Most of the time the players have found their own way to drown out the noise so that they can concentrate. Jake Burns says, “ usually the louder you are, the better we play.”