Grey Goblins Win Gym Riot Competition

When teachers and administrators encourage students to have a riot, you would expect they would need very little coaxing.

Exceeding expectations was perfectly all right with the powers that be on an equally perfect fall Friday afternoon, as students of The Laureate Academy brought endless enthusiasm to another installment of what has become a Halloween Spirit Week tradition for our school.

Bringing her perennial “A-game” to the event planning table, Student Council advisor Mrs. Law changed up the format ever-so-effortlessly this year, retaining events of indispensable status, while introducing a few new wrinkles to keep the veterans honest and to wow the rookie participants.

As per usual, four sets of team co-captains were picked, meetings were held throughout the week to select a team colour and name, as well as to create and rehearse a team fight song or cheer, and to decide on participants in those events exclusive of whole-team involvement. The decision to forego the production of a team banner left a few feeling a bit nostalgic, but most didn’t miss the scrambling for paint and enough time to get it finished before the real fun began.

Debuting the songs/cheers outdoors for the first time was an exercise in pure, unadulterated one-upmanship this year. If blue team “Jaws”, slightly arty, interpretive dance-inspired chant (set, of course, to the tune of John Williams’ unforgettably ominous theme music from the movie) didn’t strike fear in the hearts of its opponents, well… And The Colour Black’s frightening impersonation of New Zealand’s uber-intimidating All-Blacks rugby side was just as scary. The Grey Goblins opted for a more witty, wordy cheer, in the football fight song tradition, while the Red Barons’ campy rewrite of the late-Sixties novelty hit, “Snoopy Versus the Red Baron”, by the one-hit wonders the Royal Guardsmen, scored high on the weirdness scale.

With Mother Nature’s full cooperation, rioters caught their breath just in time for the beginning of Round One—a never-before-attempted event, entitled the “Air Frisbee Relay”. Picture four duos from each team participating in a relay race to propel a ping-pong ball around a course of pylons—and the resulting chaos—and you’ve pretty much got what the event was all about. After that, it was a return to the tried and true for the always exciting, “Mummy Wrap” and “Banana Shuffle”. New Event Number Two was called the “Human Conveyor”, another challenging relay event that prevailed upon four pairs per team to coordinate the conveyance of a clothespin along a string from one team member to another, then pass it to the next “belt” in the line of four. It was fun to watch, even as it was, at times, hilariously frustrating for some of the participants. Of course, everyone had a foot-stomping good time with the much-loved “Balloon Stomp”, and the surprise event, called the “Magic Carpet”, was a suitably silly, yet cerebral exercise in protective embracing and problem-solving.

Then it was off the parking lot and onto the battlefield for the ultimate in gym-riot competitiveness and bragging rights—the almighty “Tug-of-War” elimination tournament. Never have so many pulled so hard and grunted so meaningfully for so little material gain. Bags of celebratory Halloween Candy went to all the teams, so no one went home a loser. Nonetheless, kudos must be given to the Grey Goblins, this year’s overall winners of the 2011 Gym Riot. Way to go, team!