In 2011, the Sea of Gold galvanized large numbers of students into attending major sporting events, a distinct difference from the lack of enthusiasm in previous years. This improved student spirit lead the Knights to multiple victories last year, especially at the annual Valparaiso Bowl against Sacred Heart Preparatory. This year, the group is lead by new captains Hank Strohm, Nick Schultz, Beau Baldwin and Hannah Rubin. The four seniors hope to continue the supportive nature of the Sea of Gold and introduce their new ideas to the students as well. 
The Sea of Gold is responsible not only for leading the student fan section at sports games, but, for creating enthusiasm for these events during the school day as well. “A Sea of Gold captain mainly spreads the word about upcoming games, plans fan buses, plans cheers and events for the games, works with Mr. Schoof on shirt designs and what [they] are allowed to do, and leads cheers,” Schultz said. The whole idea behind this, according to Strohm, is to “create buzz in the community about sporting events.”
Rubin believes that being a Sea of Gold captain has a large amount to do with spreading awareness. “The Sea of Gold Facebook group is huge, and I think it really adds to making our sports community, as everyone knows the scores and athletes are given shout outs,” she said.
In order to become a captain, you must be a rising seniors, be chosen by the graduating captains from the year before, and have at least one sports season in which you do not play a sport. Until this year, all the captains were boys. The newest improvement of the Sea of Gold this year has been the addition of a female captain. This is one of the reasons Rubin is especially excited about her role.
“It’s truly an honor to be a female Sea of Gold captain,and I hope to show that gender doesn’t matter when it comes to spirit and supporting Menlo athletics,” Rubin said. She also expressed her hope that being the first female captain motivates more girls to come out to sporting events. Although she is the only female captain, “the other captains […] are awesome to work with, and we are all equal partners in representing the Sea of Gold,” Rubin added. “I fully support the idea of having a female captain,” Athletic Director Craig Schoof said.
Beyond having the first female captain this year, the Sea of Gold has multiple new initiatives planned for sporting events. Schultz and Strohm want to build on the success of last year’s Sea of Gold but also have new ideas they hope to implement in order to increase the effectiveness of the Sea of Gold. Strohm wants to repeat successful events that were introduced last year, as “a lot of the success that [the old Sea of Gold] captains had derived from their creativity in developing new events, such as silent night,” Strohm said. He added that this year’s Sea of Gold plans “to make many more games that students can dress up for and really get excited about.”
Schultz elaborated on the captains’ new ideas. “We are planning on a lot of themed nights, so definitely costume party, a white out for Valpo, southern formal night, and a bunch of other fun nights for everyone to come out and support all of the athletics,” he said. These will be used in order to increase the number of students that come to support games, in an attempt to have an even larger cheering section than ever before. Schultz was very happy with the way last year’s sea of gold was able to do this. “I would love for the Sea of Gold to be like last year’s because of the dedication shown by the captains and the dedicated fans who showed up to most of the games to make sure the sports were always supported,” Schultz said. 
Rubin admires last year’s Sea of Gold as well because of their success in making students interested in going to games. “Last years SoG had so much success in fostering spirit and enthusiasm towards Menlo Athletics and this year we are really trying to continue and build upon that,” she added.
Schultz thinks that the new themed nights will aid the turnout to each game, as people will be more motivated to come because they can dress up. He also wishes to have new Sea of Gold led activities to increase students’ desire to attend games. “A big [idea] that I really want to happen is at least one tail gate, because I feel with a tailgate it can bring everyone together to have fun and play games, while supporting their classmates,” Schultz said.
Rubin had similar interests in potential pre-game activities to add to the fan experience and encourage students to bring their friends to games. “We want to do this [through] BBQs and introducing more cheers to the school,” said Rubin.
In the stands, Strohm wants to physically represent the idea of gold better this year. “We are supposed to be the Sea of Gold, and therefore along with audience attendance we hope to make the student section much more gold clad than ever before,” Strohm said. Acting on this initiative, last week the captains ran a booth selling gold SoG t-shirts during lunchtime. The main idea all the captains agreed on was their desire to add to the cheers from last year. They hope that the more creative the cheers are, the more fun the students will have supporting the Knights on the field, on the court, or at the pool.
