Most people have those vivid experiences of pranking (or getting pranked by) siblings or friends. The rush of comic humor and adrenaline can be quite remarkable as a cunningly laid trap activates. However, the senior cheerleaders have taken the art of pranking to another level: the prank wars.

“Well, one day we were in the indoor,” senior cheerleader Erin Uhl said. “We were waiting to practice with the football players and Coach Cox told us that he was making a video to wish the football players good luck, and then Coach Villarreal came storming in in full football player uniform, so we got scared, and that kind of started it.”

Each side has been attempting to gain the upper hand and win the wars.

“After we plastered both of their (Coach Cox and Coach Villarreal) classrooms, Coach Villarreal stole our run-through sign, which we weren’t even worried about because we didn’t care, and then he brought it to the game anyway,” senior cheerleader Heloise Rytzell said.

Meanwhile, one of the pranks by the cheerleaders consisted of plastering the classrooms of the two coaches with a horde of copies of their school website pictures.

“(I thought) that I’d been betrayed, that I had been thrown down a flight of stairs while on crutches,” football coach Ryan Cox said. “My heart was broken, and I felt like I had no true friends in life anymore. An organization that I’d done nothing but support, help, and promote since I’d been on campus had, without any provocation, defiled my room, and basically made a mockery of my school picture that I had taken earlier this year. It was awful; the mess was atrocious: it looked like a disaster area, and I did nothing to deserve such heinous treatment by the group that is responsible for this.”

Pranks such as this gave the cheerleaders cause to believe in their victory.

“I think that we won because our pranks are one million times better than theirs,” Rytzell said.

While the wars may result in some distractions and strained feelings, they have also had an impact on student life.

“Well, it’s really fun,” senior cheerleader Regan Raineri said. “It’s better than being in class because we get to prank the football coaches and we get to run around and be funny.”