It has been eight years of big fat L’s for students at the Student vs. Staff basketball game, but that streak has finally ended this year with students pulling away with a (scary close) dub.
The game was postponed from earlier in the winter due to about ten teachers, aka three-fourths of the staff team, becoming unavailable at the last minute.
“[SGA] should have advertised the game more, because there weren’t that many people there – just a bunch of seniors and some juniors – that’s it,” said senior Myriam Alazar.
Because of it being moved later, students also believe that the game was perhaps less hyped than it would have been if it was earlier.
“This tradition brings all of the students and staff together somewhere other than in classrooms,” said Alazar.
Although, often the only interaction students get with their teachers is between 8:10 and 2:55 on Mondays through Fridays, a lot of WS students love the idea of school events like this because it takes both groups out of their elements and into a different setting.
“Playing against [my] math teacher was pretty fun,” said junior Jackson Elder, who also mentioned that “the refs took the game way too seriously.”
At times, the game was so intense that it resembled any other varsity basketball game and the referees simply added to that intensity.
At half -time, seniors walked out to represent the winter sports in which they participate, and the entertainment continued as Abbey Levine, representing women’s gymnastics, did so many back handsprings that she almost hit the bleachers.
It is not to say that the staff didn’t put up their fair share of points, because the score says otherwise. It was back and forth the whole time, until the very end when the teachers got aggressive and fouled a few students, leading to solid free throws made by students.
“It was actually really interesting because it was head-to-head pretty much the whole game,” said senior Heidi Elgaili.
The staff did show their spirit with support from teachers and administrators serving as cheerleaders with pompoms – the whole shebang. The students had a whopping zero cheerleaders, but notably the student hype squad was much bigger and louder.
“There should have been a cheer off between the student cheerleaders and the teacher cheerleaders – that definitely would’ve spiced things up,” said Elgaili.