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HILLSBOROUGH: Spirit Night blew me away

It was much more than dances and games

By Gene Robbins, Managing Editor
   I attended my first Hillsborough Spirit Night on Friday.
   Yikes.
   First, the high school gym was really hot. It reminded me of last June’s sauna that was the graduation ceremony.
   I guess when more than 1,200 people are packed in an enclosed space on a warm night, I have to expect that. Moving floor fans around was kind of a laughable exercise.
   Second, it was really loud. So loud you could feel the sound waves beating on you from the yells of a thousand screaming kids in front and back of you.
   I’m past the day when I would go to a loud rock concert, but Friday night’s noise may have been even louder, and it was generated by nothing more than screams. Fifteen minutes into the event, kids’ vocal chords had to be pleading for help.
   I thought for sure the place had to get quieter as the night wore on.
   Wrong.
   It was definitely not the right place to be for a guy with a touch of tintinitis.
   Third, the kids were really into it. Teachers were stationed around the gym in their day-glo T-shirts and earplugs — did I mention it was really loud? — but their main function seemed to be to stand ready to pull students from the brink of insanity, insensitivity and physical danger. Other than that, they were allowed to go at it.
   Fourth, everyone was having fun in friendly, but definitely spirited competition of simple games and high-energy dances. There was a warm feeling of camaraderie among classmates — lots of hugs, high fives and shrieking.
   One of my most vivid memories was watching the sophomore class dance. One young man always seemed just a half-beat behind in clapping, arm movements and dance steps.
   It bothered nobody.
   In the next event, a relay race in which people dash halfway down the basketball court and try to burst a balloon by sitting on it, the same young man missed the balloon and thumped his tushy. His team didn’t win, but when he got back to his starting point, he got high fives and laughs from his classmates.
   Way to go, guys.
   It reminded me of the New Games philosophy: Everybody plays. Nobody gets hurt.
   Whoever thought of this night was a genius.
   Kids got to blow off steam. They organized elaborate mass dance routines that would have made Busby Berkeley proud (look it up, kids) and practiced them for weeks, even months, before Spirit Night — in parks, on basketball courts, in driveways all around town.
   They put more energy into performances than probably a week of gym classes. They came off the floor drenched in sweat (did I mention it was hot?) and ran for the outside, the fans or the water bottle.
   As Principal Karen Bingert told me Monday, these spirit activities promote class unity, break done cliques within the class, instill pride in the school and encourage — no, almost mandated — getting involved and doing things well.
   ”Plus, it was fun,” she said.
   Kids organized themselves to dream up a theme, design T-shirts and banners, pen chants, choreograph dances, choose teams (equal number of boys and girls) and plan and practice, plan and practice.
   You couldn’t have whipped them, or paid them, to put as much of themselves into the evening as they did on their own volition.
   I’m told I only saw the tip of a week (or a month?) of spirit season. Everyone tells me I have to see the murals painted by each class on 30-foot stretches of corridor walls at the high school. They are another example of planning, teamwork and expression, giving kids with those special talents a chance to flaunt their talents, I’m told.
   I know now writing a class chant in just a few minutes and organizing the class into yelling it together is another part of the evening. That explained the folded pieces of paper suddenly appearing out of pockets.
   In recent years, classes now must make 10-minute videos telling the story of their theme. And I’m told classes make floats that were rolled in the Commons on the day of Spirit Night to be judged as part of the overall, year-long competition.
   Ms. Bingert tells me Spirit Night goes back to 1988 in Hillsborough, although there were various other spirit activities before that. I’ve worked in dozens of communities over the years, and I’ve never witnessed anything like this extravaganza.
   Oh, yeah, the 2,000 or so kids paid $5 apiece to ascend into this pit of controlled chaos. The money goes to the Student Council. Do the math.
   How a bunch of simple games, listed that night in hand-drawn lettering on a vertical banner at the end of the gym, can motivate to such an extreme was simply quite amazing.
   From what I saw and heard, there was a touch of respect for tradition, too. The chants inserted a line of homage to the other classmates, it seemed to me. At some point in the dance numbers, cards would be held up or dancers formed letters that would salute their fellow schoolmates. A touch of class, I thought.
   Monday night at the school board meeting, student Daria Grastara and teacher Caryn Morrison, both seen prominently on the gym floor all evening, still had scratchy, recovering voices.
   I thank Caz Bielen, who is seen around the township videoing community events, for tipping me off about Spirit Night. I think he was wearing those headphones to more than monitor the sound of the video he was filming.
   One of the four classes was named Spirit Night winner, and another rewarded for spirit through the year. But, in the end, does it really matter?