Prefect Council announced the 2024-2025 Head Fanatics on Sept. 6, Ben Boateng ’25, Hana Mehdi Williams ’25, Julian Cortez ’25, Madi Grant ’25, Nate Verny ’25 and Roen Beiley ’25. Head fanatics attend sports games and lead cheers in both the student section and organize spirit rallies.
Cortez said he appreciates the opportunity to be a fanatic and wants to return the support and enthusiasm shown to him.
“Being elected was so awesome,” Cortez said. “Getting all the support from my friends and the other people around school, even if they didn’t know me, was so sweet. It’s nice having the support of the school behind you getting elected, and now I hope to bring that back as a school spirit.”
Cortez said he wants head fanatics to be more dedicated to school spirit than in previous years.
“I was really close with some of last year’s head fanatics, and even though they did a bit of a lackluster job, I still wanted to be with them,” Cortez said. “They were really into it. I’ve already discussed with the other head fanatics and we’ve already started building a plan of how we want to run [things] this year, how we want to do Homecoming, putting way more dedication in it.”
Beiley said he wants to create more excitement at sports games because there was a lack of fan engagement in previous years.
“I plan on bringing more energy and chants to the student section,” Beiley said. “Every time I’d go to a football or basketball game, it seemed like students felt reluctant to cheer for their team. I want to change that narrative by bringing the energy I have to every game.”
Very Said he enjoyed posting content on social media to promote himself for head fanatic.
“Much of the campaigning happened on Instagram,” Verny said. “I made an account and followed many Harvard-Westlake people that I knew and posted funny stuff about me running. Video-making was super fun, it was like an art project. I had a vision and executed it.”
Verny said he plans to be especially engaged and improve the feeling of community among students during games.
“I’ll go the hardest out of all the other fanatics and I’ll also work on some crazy cheers,” Verny said. “I want the big moments to matter for everyone by creating a hype atmosphere in the fan section.”
