Spirit Week is a week-long festivity that Student Council plans for a fun and exciting week of activities leading up to Homecoming weekend.

This year, the eventful week kicked off Thursday, October 9 and concluded Friday, October 17. Spirit Week included individual and class competitions, a week-long scavenger hunt, and themed dress-down days. At the end of the week, the traditional Blue-Grey games were held.

“The most fun and exciting part of Spirit Week is the pep rally, because it is the main time the whole school is together and competing against one another,” according to Student Council President Ryan Doane ‘15.

“We had a bunch of fun activities in store and we hope it was the best Spirit Week yet,” said Doane. “I didn’t want this to be the same old Blue-Grey games, however, I wanted to keep the traditions we already had.”

Thursday
Student council led off the first event with the Scavenger Hunt. This event was all about decoding riddles. Each clue was about Malvern and the campus and could only be solved with creative thinking. Each student had to take a selfie with the answer of each clue, and the first to solve all clues won a gift card. The Scavenger Hunt was organized by Senior Brendan O’Connor and the winner of the event was Tait McGlinn ‘16.

Also on Thursday was our America-themed dress down day. Faculty and students showed off their patriotism by wearing red, white, and blue outfits. Some of the more outstanding outfits were worn by Ryan Doane ‘15 and Peter Calvaresi ‘15, Sam Sweeney ‘18, and math teacher Mike Rawlings.

Tuesday
After the long weekend, Spirit Week continued on Tuesday. Many students dressed like they were spending a day at the beach for the dress-down theme. Students showed off their beach attire with bathing suits, tank tops, and any other clothes that they would usually wear when relaxing on the sand under the hot summer sun.

World Cup soccer was the main event played on this day between eight teams with two players on each team. The games were played after school on the turf field. The winners of the World Cup were awarded Wawa gift cards. Those students were Tommy Wolfe ‘17 and Ryan Sutton ‘17, representing team Ivory Coast.

Wolfe described the event as, “an opportunity to show off [his] soccer skills while having a good time,” along with his partner Sutton. “I was excited to represent the sophomore class and help my class win the Kings of the Campus competition,” said Wolfe.

Thursday
Thursday’s festivities included the closest throw and the physics water balloon launching event. In the closest throw competition students used a football to throw into trashcans at different distances. Tommy Wolters ‘17 won a Wawa gift card for his throwing accuracy. Both of these events were played during community time on the football field and track.

Friday
Friday was the highlight of the week with the Blue-Grey games. Students competed in a variety of events at the after school event, including a sumo wrestling competition, class vs. class tug-of-war, 3-point contest, fastest kid, and biggest splash.

The games took place in the O’Neill gym and pool and winners were rewarded with gift cards.

The judging of the Grizzly Adams Beard growing competition also took place Thursday. Students were given two weeks to grow out their facial hair instead of the usual one week given in past years which made things more interesting and harder to judge. The best and biggest Grizzly Adams beard was judged by Mr. Legner in favor of freshman Jordan Donaghy, who beat out seniors Luke Hoffman and Matt Pantalone.

The Japanese-style sumo wrestling is a test of pure strength. Math teacher Jim Stinger judged students as they tried to force each other out of a circular ring wearing inflatable sumo costumes. The main event fight between seniors Matt Lanetti and Caleb Kao really entertained the crowd.

The tug-of-war was another contest in which students used their strength. Each class went head to head with one another trying to pull the opposing class over the line. The winning class was the Junior class.

The three point contest was an opportunity for basketball all stars to show the school what they were made of. Two representatives from each class including sharp shooters Will Powers, Joe Fitzpatrick, Jack Dougherty and many more competed in this event. Underdog Quinn McCahon ‘18 won the event in a sudden death match against Sophomore Raymond Barran. McCahon beat out several varsity players.

After that, track coach Mike Koenig judged the fastest sprinter at Malvern in a 100m dash. Winner Parker Abate ‘15 won a Wawa gift card.

The last event of the week was the biggest splash. This competition was a test of best cannonball technique in the pool. Swim coach Mr. Schiller along with other teachers judged who could create the largest splash in the pool. Caleb Kao ‘15 won the event with a roar of applause from the student body.

A dunk tank was also outside after the games for students to submerge their favorite or least favorite faculty members. Head of School Mr. Talbot, Head of Upper School Mr. Algeo, and Assistant Head of School Mr. Valyo all let students take turns dunking them.

Spirit Week is an important rally week of the school year for the Malvern community. Doane is pleased with how the events ran. “We were organized and executed the new games properly,” he said.

“I really think it was one of the most fun pep rally and Blue-Grey games yet!”