Gus Seibert, junior, still holds onto one of his most bizarre memories from freshman year. A memory that helps define who he is. For Seibert, this took place on the bleachers of a Friday night football game. 

“It was an away game and Kirkwood was playing Rockwood Summit,” Seibert said. “My friends were at the top of the bleachers, and I was trying to get up to them. Then, out of nowhere, I slipped and ended up just falling down the bleachers in front of the entire student section. I remember I scraped my knee pretty badly. Everyone was giving me these blank stares.”

As the football game progressed, Seibert wanted to meet his friends who were in the Rockwood Summit student section. He arrived and noticed some people he knew were scattered throughout the crowd. Then, Seibert’s foot stumbled.

“I slipped and fell again,” Seibert said. “This time it was in front of the Summit side where I had no clue who any of the people were. They were all staring at me and I heard some laughs.”

Jace Cherry, junior, is a close friend of Seibert. He was with Seibert for the majority of the game. He even had a clear view of the two times Seibert fell down the bleachers. 

“Gus is a goofball,” Cherry said. “He would definitely be the person to fall down the bleachers in front of a lot of people. That is a very Gus thing to do.”

Unlike some people who might experience embarrassment, Seibert was not really fazed. Chery emphasized how people tend to overthink uncomfortable situations

“People who witness an embarrassing situation don’t think too much about what happened, but if you’re the person who experienced what happened, then you think about it a lot more,” Cherry said. “Knowing Gus, I don’t think he would care about embarrassing himself in front of two student sections for too long.”

Lucy Seibert, sophomore and Gus’s sister, said she was not surprised by the story. She reflected on how Gus’s personality played into his experience at the football game. 

“He already had the personality to get himself into and out of an embarrassing situation,” Lucy said. “Gus would be embarrassed at that moment but then later he wouldn’t care that much.”

Lucy said being able to laugh at your own mistakes can be an advantage in a high school environment brimming with anxiety. She pointed out someone being embarrassed is more likely to remember that occasion than a simple bystander would.

“Gus’s personality can seek attention,” Lucy said. “It can be good in a sense that his friends might think that moment was funny and it’s something to laugh about.”

Seibert looked back on his memory from freshman year one last time. He thought about a takeaway he could pull from his recollection. 

“It was embarrassing,” Seibert said. “But I just carried on with what I was doing. I kind of just had to get up, brush it off and move on. All you can do is move forward from moments like those.”