Radnor Puts On Pep Rally For The Ages

You don’t need to enter to find out what time of year it is. All the signs lined down the entrance way to the school tell you. The placards displayed in the windows and around Radnor High School tell you. The football players dressed in Indian headdresses and the students in those skin-tight fluorescent greenman suits running the halls tell you.

It’s “LM Week,” and it’s punctuated every year by a pep rally like no other in the area. At stake are the bragging rights of two areas, Radnor and Lower Merion High Schools, which have the longest continuous public high school football rivalry in the country. Lower Merion leads the overall series, 56-47-11, but Radnor holds “the trophy,” which has no name, other than “the trophy.”

Right now, the valued piece of hardware sits in the office of Radnor coach Tom Ryan, who owns a 3-1 lifetime record against Lower Merion, including last year’s victory.

The pep rally this season, however, carries a little greater significance. Radnor hasn’t won a game, at 0-10 overall, while Lower Merion is 2-8, though winless this season in the Central League. So each team will have a little something to play for—Radnor looking for victory No. 1, and Lower Merion looking to capture its first league win.

It's Radnor's Super Bowl.

That’s why Friday’s pep rally, always a stunning, pyrotechnic affair, meant a little more to the seniors that participated.

“The pep rally for us is a lot about tradition,” Radnor team captain Paul Somboonsong said. “Each year coach Ryan talks a lot about tradition and upholding that for the seniors going out. That’s what we want to do. I would say beating LM would be a highlight to our season.”

TaJae Bryant, Radnor’s explosive tailback who’s receiving interest from Delaware, Towson, Villanova and West Chester, has been slowed at times this season by nagging little injuries.

“The pep rally gets the whole team pumped up, and being at the pep rally is something the seniors on this team have done since we were in middle school,” Bryant said. “It brings everyone together. The whole school is here, the faculty. It’s great.”

For Ryan, his goal has been simple: Get one victory for the seniors.

“That’s what the pep rally does, it’s a spirit event that gets everyone looking forward to the game,” Ryan said. “The whole student body comes out and each year, this gets better and better. There’s nothing like it.

“We have an opportunity to go out in a positive way. If you looked at our practices, every one is the same. You wouldn’t know if we were 0-10 or 10-0. That’s the intensity and commitment these have given. We’re a little down, from starting the season with 50 players and now we’re down to 36. But our message has been how you deal with adversity is going to make you a stronger person in life.”