For over five years, St. Stephen’s & St. Agnes School has participated in Friday Night Lights. The majority of the Friday Night Lights games have been against Episcopal, but this year, we played at the St. James, versus the St. James. However this was not the first time we played FNL at the St. James.
The expectation that Friday Night Lights is always against Episcopal is incorrect. Coach Vashon, Associate Director of Athletics and Head Football Coach, explained that SSSAS’ Friday Night Lights games are not always against Episcopal, and how there might have been a “miscommunication” through the student body about where Friday Night Lights is located and the tradition that comes with it.
“It sounds like people are under the impression that the term/theme Friday Night Lights is a game solely around Episocpal, when that is not the case. Traditionally, and across the country, most High School football games are played on Friday nights. My second year as Head Football Coach we played a “Friday Night Lights” game against O’Connell. And we have played several Friday Night Lights at the St. James.”
A lot of students relate FNL with traveling to Epsicopal and having a doubleheader with a girls sports game. However, according to Coach Koroma, the Director of Athletics, Episcopal “chose to do their Friday Night Lights game for football against a different opponent as opposed to us,” but she also knows that FNL at Episocpal is really important to our community, saying that “they love the Friday Night Lights atmosphere against our rival.”
SSSAS boys varsity football has a 5:30pm game on October 3rd, the same day as the first Seminary Hill Cup game, and Coach Koroma asked the Episcopal athletic staff if the boys’ team could play later than the original time. “Unfourtently it isn’t going to work this year,” said Coach Koroma, “but we’re hopeful that it’s something that we can bring back in the future.”
The Voice sent out a google form asking the student body to share their opinion about the location and environment of Friday Night Lights. From the 46 people who responded to the form, 61% said they would want to play at Episcopal instead and 31% said they wanted to play at the St. James.
Dylan Lansburgh, a freshman at SSSAS said, “It was also super disappointing that we were hosting the St. James and it was a home game and the opposing student section was 1/3 of our student section but 10 times louder than ours.”
Agreeing with lack of a student action, Freshman Charlotte Terwilliger said, “I didn’t feel like there was true school spirit because a lot of people couldn’t come because it was at St. James, which is not very close.”
Weston Green-Kennedy, a junior at SSSAS, thought that the school spirit was there, but he “prefers the outside lights and baby powder [because] it felt more memorable than just a game with lots of spirit.”
One senior said that next year, “Even though I won’t be there, Episcopal [would be better for FNL],” A senior responded. “Running to Episcopal in all white with nearly the whole school was probably my favorite moment of sophomore year, and I feel like we got robbed of that REAL friday night lights game this year.”
“I definitely preferred playing at Episocpal,” Gabe Murphy, senior captain for varsity football, told The Voice. “There is just so much tradition and the atmosphere there is unmatched.”
He explained that the student section at the St. James was great and he was surprised how many people stayed past halftime, but he does still think that nothing can compare to the Episcopal student section he had two years ago.
Saints and Episcopal will be facing each other at Episcopal, and although it truly can’t be classified as a Friday Night Lights game, Coach Koroma still hopes we “get a good student crowd.”
