Photo by Frank Couch.
The Oak Mountain Goom Squad cheers during an Eagles game against Thompson on Sept. 22 at Heardmont Park in Birmingham.
Each Friday morning in the fall, Luke Jasinski has an important question for his fellow classmates: Who’s painting up?
Jasinski, a senior at Oak Mountain High School, needs a head count for how many members of the student section — also known as the Goom Squad — plan to be decked out in body paint, ready to cheer on the Eagles at their football game that evening.
The group of people covered in paint from neck to waist typically numbers around 15. Many of them are covered in white paint. Those are the ones who can be found in the front row of the student section, clinging to the railing at Heardmont Park in the far section of concrete bleachers.
A few are painted red, and those are the flag runners. They lead the team onto the field before the game and sprint the length of the sideline in jubilation after each Eagles score.
No matter the base color, students have the name and jersey number of a football player painted on their backs.
“We take pride in it,” said Michael Allsbrook, a senior who can be found in the middle of the student section loudly cheering and frantically waving an enlarged picture of quarterback Connor Webb’s face.
Webb’s picture was the only one left standing as of the midway point of the football season. The Goom Squad also had one of lineman Jacob Feenker but wear and tear has rendered it unusable.
During the games, the Goom Squad sprays water out of bottles and simulates a rollercoaster ride at halftime along with maxing out its collective vocal chords. The energy comes as a direct instruction from the football team, which feeds off that.
“Be there, be loud,” Jasinski said of the football team’s wishes.
A home playoff game would be a dream come true for this round of seniors, who remember the last one in 2014 when they were freshmen. Ben McQueen said he believes that night’s first-round win over James Clemens was the loudest the student section has ever been.
But whether or not that happens again this fall, the far section of bleachers will remain loud, from the beginning to the end of the season, from kickoff until the final whistle.
“Win or lose, everyone stays and always supports the guys,” McQueen said. “We’re always super loud.”
The passion of the Goom Squad does not begin and end with the gridiron. Take, for example, a late September evening, when the Eagles volleyball team took on Vestavia Hills. The match carried no real significance, other than it was a top 10 matchup. It wasn’t an area match, and it was on a school night.
Yet, Oak Mountain students poured into the gymnasium and filled up nearly half of the seating on the spectator side, leaving parents and other supporters a limited amount of space on the home side.
“That’s the good thing about Oak Mountain, is that we have a student section, no matter what the sport,” Jasinski said.
Several classes of seniors before them have come and gone, and many more following will take the reins of the Goom Squad. Certain chants will live on, and others will be replaced, but one question remains constant, as kickoff nears on a fall Friday.
Who’s painting up?
