- November 23, 2024
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Needing just one point to secure a three-game sweep in volleyball over crosstown Matanzas last week, a group of rowdy, raucous Flagler Palm Coast students stood up in the bleachers inside the FPC gym and held up one finger.
They wanted to make sure everyone in the gym knew the Lady Bulldogs were just one point from the win.
They are Sal’s Army, and they are Flagler Palm Coast’s student section.
Student sections are extremely popular in college (see the Rowdy Reptiles in Gainesville and the Cameron Crazies at Duke, etc.). But in high school? Not so much. Until now.
It’s all about home-field and home-court advantage. But Sal’s Army wasn’t really a thing until last season, when players from the boys soccer team and the baseball team got together to be really loud at soccer games, particularly games against Matanzas and in the district tournament. (Both the boys and girls soccer teams won their respective district championships last season.)
Sal’s Army, named after Sal Campanella, the late Flagler Palm Coast High School principal, has continued to grow.
The culmination of the support was at last week’s Dig Pink volleyball game. That carried over to Friday’s huge district football game against First Coast, when a section of the stands was cordoned off for Sal’s Army.
“The establishment of the student section began to get more students and even the community more involved with the school's sporting events,” said Michael Edmonds Ehman, who is president of FPC’s Student Athletic Advisory Council and a baseball player.
Edmonds Ehman has helped grow Sal’s Army: “If we can keep increasing the involvement, we will be able to create a new standard for these events for years to come.”
Well, the support has grown.
And then chants developed. The main one, though, has become something even my girlfriend will randomly hum: “I. I believe. I believe that. I believe that we. I believe that we will win, I believe that we will win, I believe that we will win ... ”
The thudding of the bleachers as Sal’s Army stomp their collective feet, creating a deafening bass that ignites the fire within their own team and — they hope — strikes fear into the opponent.
Sal’s Army is alive. And its soldiers will be at games. They will be loud, and they believe.
