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STAFF EDITORIAL

When Is Spirit Week?

The most exciting time of the year is here, and no, Santa Claus is not making his list and checking it twice. Spirit Week has come and gone, and no one seems to notice. Every year the hallways are decorated, the outfits are outrageous and alumni and students are proud to call Bishop McNamara their home. Yet, something has gone horribly wrong with the 2009 Spirit Week extravaganza.

Spirit Week 2009 took place from Oct. 12th to Oct. 16th, only three days of which were celebrated in school. On Monday, all students were off thanks to Columbus Day… minus one day. The first official day, Tuesday Oct. 13th, Spirit Week began with the traditional Homecoming liturgy where every student, teacher and faculty member dresses in their Sunday best. The following day, Wednesday Oct. 14th was national PSAT day for students. This gave the seniors yet another day off, while abruptly halting the underclassmen’s excitement… minus two days.

Technically, the first full-blown day of Spirit Week didn’t occur until three days into the week, on Wednesday Oct. 15th. Class color day engulfed the school as students expressed their pride in their classes through outfits, face paint and wild hair spray. The last of Spirit Week, but only the third day of celebration, fell on Friday Oct. 16th as Maroon and Gold day led into the pep rally to form school solidarity and excitement for the hopeful victories of games to take place in the coming days.

As Mighty Mac ran out and beat the O’Connell player, the school roared with excitement, but yet there was something missing. Typically, there are four days to get hyped up and find your “spirit” during the days leading up to pep rally. Yet with the lack of time to get into the mood, it was over as soon as it began.

Spirit Week should not be based off of the Football game alone. In the future, the administration should come together and look at the calendar and construct a more suitable week. Yes, the football game is a large point of the weekend, but there are also other sport events and activities to be kept in mind. BMHS should not revolve something as epic as Spirit Week around one specific thing such as football. There was a feeling of not only being cut short but missing out on a major part of the high school experience. The school needs to compensate in some way for the missed days and activities to all students. There is a hope and rumor of Holy Cross week. Hopefully, we will be able to celebrate the Holy Cross tradition through some of the days that were missed due to predetermined days off. It is understood that the administration did all they could, but for future weeks, the entire school needs to be kept in mind and not just the Football team’s chance of winning.

Another component that dampened the mood (pun intended) was the rain. All week it was cold and wet leading up to homecoming night. This made the mood of everyone dreary and lackadaisical. It seemed that this Spirit Week had a lot of things going against it.

The schedule for Spirit Week is based around the predetermined football game. It just so happened that this fell on the week of Columbus Day and PSAT’s. Everyone was not in the right mindset, and there was no class competition or much school solidarity because there was not enough time. There was an idea of moving Spirit Week activities to the week after Homecoming weekend, but alumni had already been notified and orders sent in; yet again, no one specifically was to blame, but nothing seemed to be coming together.

It felt as though the students were cut short, and were not able to experience the best week of the school year. The schedule for Spirit Week is based around the predetermined football game, it just so happened that this fell on the week of Columbus Day and PSAT’s. Not everyone was in the right mind set, there was a lack of class competition and our full potential for school solidarity was not reached as well as in other years. Why? Because, simply, there was not enough time to get there.

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The staff editorial is authored through a group process. The Opinion Editors select one or more topics for debate by the staff. After the staff has discussed the issue and approached a consensus on the topic, the Opinion Editors write on behalf of the entire staff.  The staff then reviews and approves the final editorial before publication.