Superfanning has been an ongoing activity for many years. There’s a lot of planning and commitment that goes into being a leader. 

As a superfan, there come a lot of responsibilities. Being a leader requires commitment and effort. While working together as a group, the leaders also do things on their own like post new updates and call out new chants that the others just go along with.

“There are a lot more responsibilities of being a superfan leader than what people think. We have to take into account making everyone happy, having accessible, understandable themes, yet still having fun. We also have to remember to be appropriate with cheers and work accordingly together,” said senior Jessie Bennet.

For some, being a superfan leader has been a goal since the very first football game as a freshman. Senior Kelly Eppel has been superfanning since she was a freshman and since her sister Megan Eppel was also a leader when she was a senior. 

“Leading the fan section at sport events and getting students together and getting hype while dressed in a fun theme is the best part of school. I have wanted to be a superfan leader since freshman year,” Eppel said.  “I was always the loudest kid cheering, and it made me want to lead the section one day.”

Creating the themes for Friday Night Lights is a pretty challenging task for the leaders. This year they all decided to come up with the themes toward the end of last school year. The superfans met and discussed the themes they think are best and sent them out before the first game of the year

“I mean, I just figured that it’s better off coming up with them early than doing like a classic boring theme, like, last minute because we don’t have anything else. I mean, don’t get me wrong, they’re classics, but I mean, it’s always fun to add something new every once in a while,” said enior Sophia Barszcz. 

The leaders want to start superfannining more than just football and basketball. Last year there were many events that the superfans did not attend, but this year they want to include more than just the football games. 

“Most people think we only superfan football, but that is definitely not our goal this year. We plan to superfan soccer, volleyball, basketball, lacrosse, bowling, and any other clubs or sports that want us to be there,” Bennet said. “We also plan events and activities outside of games, like the tailgate before school during Homecoming week.”  

Another responsibility for the leaders is that they have to not only plan the themes and discuss, but creating the themes that everyone likes and are fun is also difficult.

“I just came up with them because I saw some ideas from last year. And I came up with random ones I just felt would be different and not done before that would make our school unique. And I think that really inspired me to come up with my own for basketball season,” Barszcz said. 

Sponsor Elaina Armata explains that superfanning was around when she went to school at Grayslake Community High School, which is now Grayslake Central High School. Armata brought superfanning to Grayslake North and wants to continue this “tradition” for a long time. 

“So me and Coach Geiger had been talking all year about different ways to bring culture back into Grayslake North. So we had talked about, usually the sponsors are just one person, but I said, ‘Hey, let’s split this.’ And we wanted to start building culture inside the school and outside the school so that feeder programs would be excited to come back and be a part of this,” Armata said.