It takes a lot of time being a fan of a football team. For a few Mountain View Toro fans, it’s nearly an all day commitment. The “Blue Boys”, as they are affectionately called on campus, are five wrestlers who paint their bodies blue to show their support for their football team.
The process takes about two hours to get fully painted, and their duties don’t stop there. Alongside the cheerleaders, the Blue Boys lead the student in cheers, perform back flips and handsprings after big plays, and do pushups when the football team scores.
“When the team is feeling down, they can always count on us to start chants, get them up, get them ready to go,” senior Nicolas Estrada said. “They hear that crowd cheering them on and see us on the sidelines supporting them, they’ll know we’re behind them.”
The tradition of the Blue Boys has been around for quite some time at Mountain View. Bob Callison, the wrestling coach and Blue Boy organizer, said the wrestlers have been dosing themselves in paint long before he came to Mountain View ten years ago.
“A lot of times people will call me and ask, ‘Are you the coach of the Blue Men?’ and technically I’m the wrestling coach, but I guess I’m the coach of the Blue Men too,” Callison joked.
Callison, whose son, Benjamin, is a current Blue Boy, also believes this group not only brings life to the team, but the crowd as well.
“I think it’s uplifting to the crowd. They see those guys out there and they’re doing their best with the cheerleaders and everybody else to make it a good event.”
The Blue Boys are also trying to create support for Mountain View athletics as a whole.
“(We) try to bring everyone’s spirit’s up,” senior Blake Monty said. “Hopefully (the football team) sees us supporting them and they’ll come out and support the wrestling team and help us out too.”
So win or lose, expect to see the Blue Boys leading the cheering charge for the Toros.
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