The first rally of the school year. It was certainly an interesting experience. Weeks of meticulous planning led to a rally full of fun filled games and activities that left students pleasantly surprised! With a grand opening stampede of seniors, a short but fierce tug-of-war, an open reading of mean tweets against classes, and a tense game of musical chairs, it was certainly an event you didn’t want to miss! 

“It was honestly very hot, I felt like I was going to pass out from heat exhaustion,” freshman Denys Liptchinsky told the Shield. The rally took place under the last few weeks of warm summer sun which was a burden to certain students. It appeared as if this sentiment was shared among those attending the rally on Friday.

As students shuffled into their respective class seats, and leadership students discussed some final plans at the field, everything seemed normal on the surface level. However, there was certainly something very off about the whole experience…

Where were the seniors?

It seemed as if every student was asking this question, as they gazed upon the empty bleachers that bore the Senior banner. The leadership students played along brilliantly, pretending to be oblivious to the senior’s location. Of course, this all came to an end as the student announcer said: “Wait… what’s that I hear coming?”

Suddenly, the seniors spilled onto the field, screaming their class chants as they ran to their bleachers. Some were even carried on top of other’s shoulders, as they bolted across the field. With this surprise, the classes followed with their chants and the rally had officially begun.

However, before the class games could even begin, there had to be some shirt tossing. As leadership students and Dublin High’s school mascot, Grady, tossed shirts into the crowd, a separate group of students gave an explanation about the Gael Cup—a trophy that a class group wins if they surpass all the others in point total. 

The explanation was shortly interrupted by a separate announcer making note of the fact that the number on the hill had changed. Each year, the graduating class of Dublin High uses flour to etche their graduating year number onto the hill that overlooks the campu. Although this is an important part to seniors of celebrating the last year of high school, it is also tradition for the other graduating classes to sneakily change the number on the hill to their own graduating year.  It appears some sneaky juniors decided to change the number on the hill from a twenty-two to a twenty-three! 

Of course, that stirred up some turmoil in the bleachers, but there was nothing that an excellently choreographed and synchronized dance routine that Dublin High’s very own dance team couldn’t solve! They put on an excellent performance, successfully wooing the crowd with their organized moves. 

The first activity involving all four classes began: a giant match of Tug-Of-War. The students from all classes were randomly picked for the match and put into two opposing teams: sophomores and juniors versus seniors and freshmen.

The game started with a powerful heave from the senior/freshmen group, and it all went downhill from there for the juniors/sophomores. After approximately a minute of intense battle, the seniors led a powerful tug that led to some juniors and sophomores collapsing to the ground. It was with this powerful surge that won the seniors and freshmen a couple of points for the Gael Cup. 

While those who participated in the game shuffled back to their seats in the bleachers, a banner was carried around the field advertising the Twitter hashtag thread that students could use to voice their opinions. Of course, the announcers on the field took advantage of it to voice some mean tweets directed at certain class groups.

“Are the freshmen even here because I didn’t hear anyone during their battle cry,” tweeted Bella Aliotti, and “Sophomores thought they made it on the hill but they should check again,” tweeted Hannah Briggs poked fun at the classes while others decided to voice their opinions on the Rally itself, like Serious Latte, who posted: “Will you reimburse my medical expenses for auditory damage?”.

After the crowd-stirring mean tweets were read, there was the relay race. Individual representatives of each class lined up for a multi-step relay race which consisted of events like throwing a ball into a garbage bin, and so forth. However, as soon as the race started, it was very clear that there was some sort of tampering involved to hinder the efforts of other teams in regards to a certain shirt. 

When the freshman representative attempted to put on one of the shirts for the game, they found that the shirt was freezing cold, and drenched in water. The reason for this? To try and confuse the representative to gain an upper hand in winning the race. In the end, this ploy worked as this confusion led to the freshman team coming in last while the juniors’ reigned victorious.

Following the victory of the juniors, the leadership students once again read certain mean tweets aloud into the crowd. This was subsequently followed by the sounds of feet angrily stomping on the bleachers by classes who were targeted by the tweets. 

The final game of the day was the ever so famous musical chairs. Just like the last game, one student represented each class, with four in total and only three chairs. With music like “Feel It Still by Portugal The Man” and “Humble” by Kendrick Lamar playing over the speakers, the four contestants ran around the chairs, eyeing each other in order to gain the upper hand.

When the music stopped, three of the four contestants bolted for the seats. It was a brief battle, but it certainly was an arduous one. When the dust cleared, the only person standing was the freshman representative, much to the enjoyment of the other classes. Of course, the fact that the freshmen were out first was the topic of many subsequent mean tweets.

With one chair removed from the group, the music started and the contestants once again made the circular trip. “It seemed to drag on for an eternity!” reported Jason Hu, a first-year student at Dublin High. All of a sudden, the music ended and the contestants scrambled to find a seat. In the end, the only two classes left were the seniors and the juniors.

For the last round, the game would be a little different from the previous rounds. The chair was placed inside of a large yellow circle, and the two contestants were told to run or walk around said circle. And so, when the music resumed they found themselves each at a fair distance from the chair, eyeing each other for the chance to win.

As soon as the music stopped, it was as if they were moving like lightning. The senior representative managed to sit on the chair first, igniting a roar from the senior bleachers. He folded and grabbed the chair and went to the remaining three class bleachers and began to brag, only to find “boos” from the underclassmen crowd. Seeing the lack of response, he ran all the way across the field and waved his fists proudly at the senior bleachers, who erupted almost instantly into cheers.

Despite certain student sentiment at the time, the rally was an overall success and a proud way to welcome students back into campus. We can only hope to see what fun the next rally will be! Until then… Go Gaels!