MV Leadership holds first Class Royale event
Leadership’s Spirit Commission describes how Class Royale came to be
The senior class celebrates a mistake made by the juniors in the final minutes of the junior-senior dodgeball game.
Over the span of a week from Jan. 13 to 17, MVHS students competed in Leadership’s Class Royale, a new inter-class event with various activities for the prize of the Class Royale trophy. Through games of spikeball, tug-of-war and dodgeball, the juniors claimed first place, with the seniors coming in close second, the sophomores in third and the freshmen in last.
Due to the lack of activities in the months between Homecoming in October and Powerpuff in April, Leadership’s Spirit Commission, a group dedicated to hosting school events and competitions, decided to create an event that would bridge the gap between the two. Spirit commissioner senior William Liou expanded on fellow commissioner junior Shreyas Deshpande’s initial suggestion to hold a tournament and brainstormed an inter-class competition that could become an inter-school tradition to MVHS, similar to the Helmet Game. These plans prompted incentives in the form of trophies and medals.
“We’re always looking to introduce new ideas for the school, so we were … just like, ‘We’ll see how it goes this year and hopefully it becomes a tradition,’” Deshpande said. “We bought a trophy that will be handed down for future years; we bought medals for participants and maybe [for] future years we could do like pizza parties or whatnot, so we can add onto [the incentives].”
By holding competitions with simpler rules like spikeball and dodgeball, Liou believes that more students were encouraged to play, contrasting the event with more complicated games held during rallies that frustrated some competitors due to the more challenging rules. Looking forward, Liou hopes that Leadership’s Spirit Commission can reach out to a wider variety of people by expanding on the kinds of activities they held during Class Royale.
“We’ve only got the most athletic people and the most hyped people out; I think that’s okay for now,” Liou said. “Hopefully we can include stuff like quiz bowls and then we can have a few crowd-based activities. We tried to incorporate that this year by having a spirit point, where the most spirited class every day got a point.”
However, according to junior and Class of 2021 treasurer Annabelle Choi, there was already an increased amount of participation from new students, partly due to the larger number of participants needed in comparison to rally gamers.
“We did send out a promo on our class account to say that we were doing this event, and [that] anyone interested should swipe up,” Choi said. “This year, I know at least five people that usually don’t do rally games signed up to join. As a whole, I think it turned out really well … I think this year it was well-run; even though it rained on one of the days [Leadership’s Spirit Commission] still got it going, which I think shows how it’s going to be a good tradition in the future.”
Overall, Liou and Deshpande were satisfied with the outcome, both with how many people participated and also the overall excitement surrounding it. Looking forward, they both agree that there are many improvements that could be made, but also want to take the time to reflect on the work that went into the entire process.
“I’m proud of [Class Royale] — I think as a commission, we’re doing something really unique, and it was great to see our entire commission all for it,” Liou said. “It was great to see our advisors all for it; it was great to see Class Office willing to kind of try it out. It took a bit of pushing, but they managed to work through it in the end … and it’s great to see that happen.”
