Spirit rallies means sweaty crowds cheering under the unbearable heat of the sun, right? Not so much. Students and faculty crowded under umbrellas and plastic bags to shield themselves from the pouring rain during the annual Spirit Rally on Davis Field on April 22.

“Looking back on it, I liked the rally in the rain. I didn’t like it that much in the moment, but now I think it’s fun,” Hazal Gurcan (11), a member of the varsity dance team, said. “It was pretty cool being with the elements, and I feel like it made us more spirited to be in the rain.”

This year, Harker’s Green Committee coordinated with the Spirit Club to celebrate Earth Day on the same day as the Spirit Rally.

“During first semester, we knew that [Spirit Week] was coming,” Green Team adviser Diana Moss said. “And also partly because the Green Committee wanted to make sure we acknowledged Earth Day because we haven’t in the past, in a very significant way, and it has always coincided with Spirit Week.”

During the rally, the junior class defeated the seniors in the scream contest. Overall, the juniors also won the spirit contest, with 54 points. The seniors earned second place with 51 points, while the freshmen came in third with 50 points. The sophomore class came in fourth place with 43 points.

“I think my favorite part was winning the scream-off during the spirit rally while it was raining,” Maile Chung (11), Harker Spirit Competitive Events Committee director, said. “I thought it was really different because normally the spirit rally and all the rallies that we have, like homecoming, it’s always really hot but this one, since it was raining, it kind of gave a new sort of adrenaline and a new feeling that was really exciting.”

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Kshithija Mulam

The seniors sport red, white and blue as they cheer on their class in the regatta. The four classes competed in the annual regatta competition on April 21.

While spirit week culminated in Friday’s rally, students and faculty dressed up all week according to various themes: Sports Madness Monday, Time Travel Tuesday and Wacky Wednesday. For Thursday’s class choice, the seniors chose red, white and blue; the juniors wore pajamas; the sophomores decided to host a twin day and the freshmen dressed up like greasers and socials.

“Even though we got fourth place [in the regatta], everybody came together. Everybody was cheering, everybody helped out,” Neil Ramaswamy (9) said. “I felt that people who had spirit – you could really see it in them. It’s raining, it’s miserable, but they’re still repping their classes.”

The sophomores met with their eagle buddies right after the rally for an event to celebrate Earth day and eat lunch together. Some sophomores, however, felt that the rally in the rain spoiled their activities with the third graders.

“There were many shivering, young sophomores that had eagle buddies looking at them as if they were dying, so not the greatest,” Justin Xie (10) said. “However, some prepared people, like myself, were warm, which was good, but in general, rain and spirit rallies – I don’t think they go well together.”
Spirit Week and Saturday’s prom marked the end of this school year’s spirit activities.

This piece was originally published in the pages of the Winged Post on May 4, 2016.