Bang! A loud cannon’s boom resounds throughout the stadium. Flap! The Jesuit flags whip around in the wind. Aaaaaah! Finally, the Jesuit Yell ensues, led by the omnipresent, spirited young men in light blue tank tops. The Lone Rangers are at it again!
The Lone Rangers, according to Austin Ryan, the group’s moderator, “is an extracurricular group that is designed to create, and
foster, and increase school spirit at sporting events.” Most often, the group can be seen at the football games screaming along with the cheerleaders, firing the cannon, and running the flags after each and every touchdown.
However, the field is not the only place they can be found. Before every home game the Lone Rangers join the pre-game festivities, having “a nice little grill out, getting crazy, painting themselves up,” and having “a chat about football, chat about Jesuit,” or “a chat about whatever,” said Mr. Ryan.
The students involved with the Lone Rangers, like Mr. Ryan, also seem to enjoy the pre-game festivities. Jacob Przada, the Senior Captain of the Lone Rangers expressed that “tailgating in our school parking lot with our Jesuit brothers” is his favorite part of being in the group. During tailgating, the Lone Rangers volunteer with no reward to grill hamburgers and hot dogs for the Jesuit fans.
They do it because they love it and because they want to “display what Ranger Pride is all about,” said Jacob. In addition to the spirit displayed before, during, and after every game, the brotherhood Jacob alluded to represents the organization’s goal, to build a community that represents the pillars of the Jesuit profile, to be open, loving, and committed to supporting your Jesuit team. To Mr. Ryan and the Lone Rangers it does not matter what capacity it is done in, as long as the community is built.
To accomplish this goal of a one unified “Ranger Nation” as Jacob would call it, Mr. Ryan suggests that “Ranger Day should be done 
every Friday night,” and not just occur one “day in November because we have a day off from school, and the teachers organized it, and the administration okayed the day off.”
Mr. Ryan also says that the Lone Ranger group should eventually combine with the student section, to become the Lone Ranger section, a section with spirit tantamount to the “Cameron Crazies at Duke or the Twelfth man at A&M”, and a section that is feared by opponents when they roll into Jesuit.
However, the sentiment shared by both Mr. Ryan and the Lone Rangers is that the students are not quite spirited enough yet, sometimes uninspired enough to the point of disappointment. And no, this is not “a bash Jesuit session or a time for me to rant” said Mr. Ryan during the interview, but maybe it is an invitation to be like the Lone Rangers, “a bunch of guys who have no official tie to the team other than the fact they both go to Jesuit.” So Jesuit, what will it be, sit in a different section or cheer like the Jesuit community you know you can be?
