“Dressing up silly, acting obnoxious and like dorks, cheering the team on, and doing whatever it takes to show the most school spirit and cheer on the Arrowhead Warhawks in victory!” is senior Megan Peschke’s definition of gatoring. It’s what the Arrowhead students do to keep their players motivated out on the turf during home games. However, this dressing up and yelling doesn’t stop at Taraska field.

As Peschke says, “Obviously some people don’t like to truck all the way out to different schools, but we try our best. The ones who make it out to all the games are the ones that are truly dedicated gators.” And whether student gators make it to the away games or not, Peschke says they do come to the home games for sure.

            With 2400 students at Arrowhead, you may wonder how many gators actually attend Friday night games at the field. According to Peschke, “We have been lucky enough to get a big chunk of people to come gator, sometimes the crowd depends on conflicting sports that might be the same night, but otherwise there’s 212 people in the Facebook group and I’d say a good give or take 100 people show up every game to gator mostly in the senior and junior class.”

            Gatoring is an Arrowhead tradition and the Facebook page of gators was passed down to the younger classman as each year’s seniors graduate and move on to college while the other students still attending Arrowhead keep the tradition rolling.

 However, now there is one minor change allowed in the rulebook. “Who is allowed to gator at games.”  Peschke says, “I think that rule has changed over years… It was strictly the senior class but as the junior class and senior class got closer over the years, sharing north campus, its changed in that more people have the opportunity to gator and now that we have our new stadium it seems necessary that we make it a whole school effort.”

Without the Arrowhead Facebook page it’d be a struggle to get people to gator or relay the theme to everyone before the game. Luckily, Peschke says, “A few years ago when Facebook started to become popular the senior class made a group and we’ve followed in their footsteps ever since. It’s an easy way to brainstorm ideas and get the word out so we can get as many people to dress up, support and cheer at different sporting events.” This is one way the gator theme is introduced to everyone before the game.  But what are the best themes for gatoring? Peschke says, “I enjoy dressing like a cowgirl and in different scuba gear for the beach theme but I know my favorite theme this year will be when we are strutting our Arrowhead colors because it gives us the feeling of real Arrowhead school spirit!”

            Whether it’s dressing like a cowgirl or wearing scuba and beach gear Arrowhead students/gatorers come together to make the rowdiest cheering section wherever our Warhawks play. Want to get involved? Become a member on the Facebook Arrowhead Gator page!