Spartans—both adults and students—tipped off agains one another in mid-November for the seventh annual Students vs Staff Game.
The kids kept it close, but the grown-ups prevailed again in the popular contest.
The SGA-sponsored event was created in 2007 to encourage interaction between students and teachers outside of school, and as a pep rally for winter sports. A Spirit Week precedes the tip-off every year.
Seniors John Giordano and Jeffrey Gerken were emblematic of the spirit the event brings to the school every year.
“I bleed orange and blue,” Giordano said while wearing his plaid shirt and nerd glasses on Ballers vs. Scholars day.
School spirit is very important to Gerken and he showed it.
“[School spirit] is the ocean under my boat of academic success,” Gerken said.
The game is a free event and is funded using the leftover money from the Homecoming dance
The week’s themes were Hipsters vs. Prepsters day, Camo-Out, Ballers vs. Scholars, ’Murica day, and Neon-Out.
The student side of the gym was packed, as Spartans turned out to see the staff extend its winning streak to seven with a nine-point win.
Algebra 2 teacher, Dawson Allen played well in his team’s victory.
“It was a team game and we dominated,” Allen said. Many members of the staff team, whose confidence was through the roof because of the streak, feel confident that they can extend their undefeated record to infinity and beyond. Allen, for his part, doesn’t think the students will ever beat the Mighty, Mighty Spartan Faculty.

“Never, never in a million years,” Allen said, with no hyperbole intended.
PE teacher Brian Puhlick said he didn’t play as well as Allen or some of his other teammates but he still showed good sportsmanship,
“I played awful,” Puhlick, a 1990 Spartan grad, said. “I got the biggest laugh of the night when I went diving into the scorer’s table, but it’s all about having fun and having a good time.”
In Puhlick’s defense, he was a football and lacrosse player in high school. Puhlick echoed Allen’s prediction of staff dominance for years to come, saying that the students will never get a win in his lifetime.
Principal Mike Mukai said he likes the way his team played and was impressed by their performance. He did acknowledge, hoever, that the adults kind of stack the deck against the students by not letting the actual basketball players play. While this ensures that other seniors get a chance to play in the game, it removes some of the students’ top talent.
“It would get ugly for the staff if we let the basketball teams play,” Mukai said.
Unlike his teammates, Mukai thinks that the students will win eventually but whether they win in the near future or in 20 years is still in question.
Senior Khalil Law said that despite the loss, he was satisfied with both his and his team’s performance.
“I did good but I could’ve done better,” Law said, “We could’ve gotten more rebounds, assists, and just played better team ball.”
Law said that the students were very close to beating the staff and is confident that if the two teams were to clash again this year, the students would come out on top.
“I wanna get a rematch,” said Law, “I wanna see if we can get a rematch.”