BY CHARLIE JORDAN

When students came back from Spring Break on April 4th, Athletic Director Tom Nerl surprised the students with the new app Warrior Nation, after two years in the making, Warrior Nation finally became a reality. Nerl first saw this app at a conference he went to and has wanted it ever since. Now that the app is a reality, and he sees that it is more work than he anticipated.

“It’s very labor intensive, I’m still learning how it all works,” says Nerl.

The app is run by Nerl, but Superfan High, the maker of the app, has helped Nerl out by putting the points in for all of the events. Recently he has introduced prizes for 125 and 160 points. Once a fan reaches 125 points they receive a free Skyline cheese coney, and a Mariemont window sticker at 160 points.

In the first two weeks 136+ students and parents have checked in and have received points towards these prizes. Nerl says more prizes will be introduced as time goes on such as a “Be Better” wristband.

Junior Joe Veeneman says, “I think people are starting to get into it more now with the prizes; I think that next year with more prizes the app will be even better.”

Along with the awards section of the app, the app also includes sections like the leader board, fan cam, events page, and a social section. The leader board includes all 136+ parents, high school students, and junior high students with senior Molly Moehring who is currently fighting for the top spot.

“The app encourages me to go to more games because everyone is competing to be at the top of the leader board,” says Moehring. She went on to say, “Although you don’t get anything for being at the top, people seem to like the point idea.”

The app’s leader board is also bringing a rivalry to some of the families at the high school like the Falknor family.

Senior Madeline Falknor explains the competition. “My dad, sister, and I have a family competition going on to see who can get more points; Abbey is currently winning,” she says.

Another popular section of the app is the fan cam. The fan cam is the section of the app where fans can post pictures of themselves at the games or pictures of the games.

New to the app, junior Bryan Biggs says, “I’m excited to see fun pictures of fans at the games.”

The events page on the app lists all sporting events going on with times and dates for future events. It also lists the amount of points awarded for attending. Nerl is currently adjusting the points that have been preset by the maker of the app. The more popular games like boys lacrosse are worth few points points and less popular games are worth more points. Nerl says he intends to add in other events rather than just sports like the fall play and spring musical as they come up next year.

The last section of the app is called the social section. This is where you can see all of Nerl’s tweets from his Twitter with updates and scores of the games.

Students seem to be enjoying the app so far, but as Nerl begins to add more prizes and make improvements the app should see even better results.