What is your role on your staff?
I’m the co-editor-in-chief. I assign all the articles, run the website, run our Instagram and TikTok, yeah, just kind of oversee everything. I’m not really writing articles, but overseeing everything else that the staff writers do and all of our online sources.

What is your staff like?
We do have a small staff, and our adviser is new, but she’s wonderful. We’ve just kind of had to try to get things in order after COVID, getting new administrators and getting a new adviser. It’s just a lot to work out with, you know, finding our flow, finding a way to make sure that the administrators feel good about what we’re publishing, how we represent the school, getting our staff writers encouraged to have a lot of passion for their positions and for journalism, and to try to just build up that presence by increasing our social media engagement.

We want to encourage people who may be going to our school next year to join the staff and to just pay more attention to things being published. So, we’re really just trying to build up everything so that in future generations, even though I’ll be gone, that the staff will know how to really engage student body and be able to publish a lot of the things they really want to write about and have a large staff that’s really passionate about what they’re doing.

What has your football season looked like this year?
Plano [recently] has never really had a definitive reputation for being, you know, winners or losers. The spirits this year have kind of been high because we were on a good winning streak. We haven’t won all our games but definitely the students are really excited this year because we saw a lot of potential and a lot of good effort from our team. A lot of students are just having a lot of pep and a lot more spirit this year, so we’re proud of our players for what they’ve done so far even if we haven’t had a picture perfect season. We’re looking forward to ending off the season on a good note.

What are Plano’s strengths and weaknesses as a team?
I definitely think a strength is that the players really enjoy seeing how much the student body is cheering them on. And I think that really gives them a lot of courage and momentum for the game. I know they have told some of our staff writers when they’ve been interviewed that they really appreciate the energy that the crowd gives them.

From what I’ve seen and what they’ve said, I haven’t seen too much weakness, but we did have a player get injured this season. That was one point that was kind of sad to see but he’s OK now and I was at that game and the whole team just really showed their concern and care for their players. So like I said, I think they’re all relying on each other this year and the student body was really showing out to all the games. Even though our last game was pouring rain, and there was a three hour delay, a lot of students still showed up. I know the players really appreciated that.

Do you have any key players that bring your team success?
I do think a lot of the players at school, and the general student body has kind of been highlighting the team as a whole. I think they’re just really working well, this year together, having better team connections. So though I don’t know specifics, and there probably are some star players, I think this year, the team has been working a lot better together to ensure some more wins in the past few years.

What is your student section like, and are they coming to the game?
I’m not sure how many people will be going, but it should still be a good amount considering that our last game had horrible weather and people still showed up. So I think there will be a decent turnout. And I know for away games, there still are a good amount of students that go. For home games, there’s plenty of people and the student section is usually packed. People always dress up for the themes.

We have our student section leaders, the Mamacitas and the Blazer Boys, which have been a long-lasting tradition at Plano, and they really kind of encourage everyone to participate as well. So everyone just really likes to follow the themes and through the chants, make posters TikToks about it. I know one game, they even had a limbo game going on when things were kind of going slow. So I think everyone just really participates in the student section. There should be a good turnout, even though it’s an away game, and it’s on a Thursday.