During the second half of the Highland Park Scots football game with Rockwall on Aug. 31, a strange incident occurred–the lights went out. This left both teams and all of their fans in the dark. The incident was due to a miscommunication between the athletic department and the maintenance department. The stadium lights are on an automatic timer that turns them off at a specific time each night. This saves energy by keeping the lights from being on all night, and helps minimize disruptions to the residents who live near the school.

However, no one thought to tell the maintenance department to extend the time for the lights to be on.

“We were just sitting in our seats, cheering on the Scots, when all of a sudden the whole stadium turned dark,” senior Belle Ava Jahant said. “I have never seen anything like that. It was kind of scary at first because no one knew what was going on.”

The Rockwall fans in attendance set aside their competitive nature to join in on the fun during this period of darkness.

“At first I just looked around at the stadium because every single person in the stands had their cell phones out and their flashlights up,” senior football player Jake Walsh said. “It looked really cool from the field because in a way their phones lit up the field for us.”

Although the temporary ‘blackout’ brought enthusiasm to the crowd, that did not stop the seriousness towards receiving a HP victory. Even though the football team kept on working through the darkness, not every student had that mentality of keeping focus to win the game.

“When the lights went out, everyone started cheering at first,” Jahant said. “Then after we realize that the lights weren’t coming on any time soon, all of the students in the student section just sat down because they didn’t know what else to do.”

The result was what those in attendance will forever refer to as the Great Blackout of 2018.  

Fortunately, the problem was corrected after a brief delay and the game was able to resume, with the result being a game that ended in a big Scots victory.