The 2025 Winter Pep Rally took place in the John P. Stevens new gym on Friday, February 7. Students showed their school spirit and pride as they encouraged their fellow classmates. A myriad of selected classes were able to congregate on the bleachers to cheer on the winter sports teams.
As the students filled the stands, dividing themselves by grade, the indoor drumline took this opportunity to present a few opening music pieces. The lively performance created the perfect segue into a lively pep rally with music, dances, and fun games. To start, the student council presidents, seniors, Bill Tang and Saanvi Budigam welcomed the crowd to the event, introducing themselves as the emcees for the night. They then briefly handed the mic over to the new athletic director, David Marzano, a retired math teacher. Mr. Marzano warmly welcomed the students and teachers to their annual pep rally before the hosts of the event took over once again.
In order to boost motivation within the gym, the hosts welcomed the cheerleaders and their advisors, who brought high spirits as they filed in. With proper formation, the team energized the room with a lively performance including backflips, split leaps, and many other captivating moves. As this recital concluded, the cheer captains were introduced; they then subsequently introduced the rest of the official JP cheerleading team. As the team took their seats around the gym, the next performance of the pep rally was brought on by the JP Stevens drumline. The captains of the indoor drumline were introduced, and their band displayed a portion of their show to enjoy with the students. Next, the captains of the winter track team arrived to present the rest of their members.
“It was nice seeing a lot of school spirit,” stated Ayush Mahod, a freshman. “I liked seeing everyone celebrate the athletes, it’s like an honorable tradition”
As the event progressed, the sports captains continued to introduce their teams to the crowd, celebrating their hard work and victories over the past season. The captains from the basketball, bowling, ice hockey, wrestling, and swim teams individually arrived at the center of the gymnasium with their members loosely following behind them. As the teams seated themselves on the gym floor, the dance team captains captured everyone’s attention. After introducing the rest of their squad, they performed a dance mashup that livened up the audience.
After the dance concluded, the hosts retook the attention of the gym, presenting the grade-wide sack race. They called upon five randomly pre-selected students to the center of the room, heeding them with instructions on how to play the game. With five people from each grade lined up within their own teams, they were instructed to enter a large sack and race to the center half-court line, remove the sack, and run back to the starting line as soon as possible. The first grade level to have each member finish their race would be the ultimate winner. While the players for each team jumped, slipped, or fell in order to reach the end of the line, the crowds watched with growing anticipation. Once everyone had gone, the winner had been declared. The senior class completed their relay race and won first place with the freshmen, juniors, then finally sophomores got subsequently ranked.
“It was my first time going,” stated junior Vibhav Chauhan. “It was actually really fun watching all of the sports teams sit together and celebrate the season with us.”
After the winning team was declared, the emcees thanked everybody for coming and allowed them to leave, officially concluding the rally. Overall, the winter pep rally was a high-spirited event and reestablished school pep to all of the students in attendance, leaving them with energy and vigor.
