![Minutes before the Activities Fair in the gym, president Abhi Gowda ‘26 prepares the stall for his club Helping Hands, Sept. 4. A relatively new club, Helping Hands was co-started by Gowda and focuses on assisting the homeless, and just last year they succeeded in raising a couple hundred donations to send to shelters. This year, they have goals to expand, with hopes to increase volunteer opportunities and take in-person trips to shelters, as well as extend their help beyond just homeless people. “The Activities Fair gives a lot of underclassmen the opportunity to really get to know the Canyon culture, and it gives them many opportunities for service and volunteering,” Gowda said. “[Through the Activities Fair,] I hope to find a bunch of new and passionate members about our club and just get our name out there and spread awareness to the cause that we’re fighting for.”](https://rockmediaonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/1-2-1200x885.jpg)
![The winter guard team makes fifth place at the state championship finals in the Denver Coliseum, March 30. The team performed to Barnes Country's “Glitter and Gold,” lead by coaches Margo Sanford, Blair Bickerton and Anna Orgren. In their class there were a total of nine groups participating, and the top five who made it to finals received a plaque. “[Walking onto the stage] is very nerve-wracking, but also very exciting as well. When you first start color guard there's a lot of anxiety and uncertainty when you first perform in front of an audience, but once you've done it for a while, it starts to become the best part of the season,” Ella West ‘25 said. “It's very fulfilling to see an audience react to something you've put your heart and soul into.”](https://rockmediaonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Both-socal-media-nd-website-main-1-1200x846.jpg)
![April marks the 25th anniversary of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, created by the National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC). This month is to spread awareness of the harassment, assault and abuse that happens around the world. The symbol that represented the month was a teal ribbon; however, some survivors of assault create different symbols and movements like the TikTok trend in 2022, where survivors would tattoo Medusa on their body, in honor of her backstory in Greek Mythology. “I don't think [this month is known] at all. I rarely see anybody talk about it. I rarely see much of an emphasis on posting it online, or much discussion about it, and I feel like there needs to be way more discussion,” an anonymous source said. “I think just validating every experience that a person has gone through, regardless of the degree of it, the severity, is an essential step into making sure that people are aware that this is a very real problem in a society and that we need to do better in addressing it.”](https://rockmediaonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/IMG_0011-1200x900.jpg)
![Lesbian Visibility Day is April 26, and it’s a holiday to celebrate the lesbian community of the world. Lesbian Visibility day was established in 2008 by many queer activists and organizations who sought to raise more awareness for lesbian history and culture. “So this is why during Lesbian Visibility [Day] we celebrate and center all lesbians, both cis and trans, while also showing solidarity with all LGBTQ+ women and nonbinary people,” Linda Reily, in an article written by her, said.](https://rockmediaonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Lesbian-Visibility-day.jpeg)
Let’s Get Real
“It’s How You Play the Game”
What Else Is There to Rock Canyon?
Owen Loughlin #13, plays mid-center for both the Real club and the school. Loughlin plays for Real Olympica and played for the C-Level in the 2018 season.
“It was our off-season from club soccer so I thought I’d keep in shape by playing,” Loughlin said. “If you want to play year-round, you have to be on DA(DA is the US Soccer Development Academy) team. Which is the highest level team and you go to a lot of tournaments for college scouting. If you’re on DA then you can’t play high school because you sign a contract to only play club.”
Loughlin plays for the Spring season of Real Olympica. The practices began in March and the season’s Championship is in May. Practices start before the season so games have not begun yet. There are 8-10 games in a season and one game ever weekend. Tournaments can also go on after the season ends.
During their practices, the coach would normally talk for about five minutes, then they run drills for 40, do possession for 40 and scrimmage for the rest of practice. Practices start at 7:30 and go to 9:10-9:20. Similar to the school team, C-Level ran drills and possession after the boys changed out after school. But for the high school team, they had 5:00 am workouts in the summer.
“Some days we just gotta run,” Loughlin said.
For Real Olympica, there are many kids on the team so that makes it very competitive for who gets put on the field to play.
“We have 20 players on or team so two kids can’t dress out-if you don’t do well during practice, you can’t dress out for the game,” Loughlin said.
Real Olympica goes on out-of-state tournaments and where they can view college campuses. They get to play for 2-3 days for out-of-state tournaments then arrive back on the Sunday before school would start the week over again.
“Basically you just get dropped off and we rent a truck, you ride with your teams, chill in the hotel, and go out to eat. When we went to Salt Lake City for Regionals. It was cool because since it was for regionals they had really nice grass fields. We did a couple college tours when we weren’t playing,” Loughlin said.
But with all this work and practice, how does Loughlin find time for homework and other school activities?
“Usually if I have homework nights I have practice, I usually do it during access so I can hang out with people. And go to bed at 9:30,” Loughlin said.
Playing for a high school and for a club are actually very different.
“I think Real soccer is a lot more technical and more on skill and high school soccer is more physical,” Loughlin said. But Loughlin is planning to play next year for the 2019 Boys Soccer season.
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