What is the average MC student thinking about during school? Maybe what’s for lunch today, when this class is over, maybe even how to sleep without getting yelled at. So this begs the question, why even bother with fun things like Spirit Week? What’s the point?
All the things that MC does to foster brotherhood, things like mass and Spirit Week, contribute to a way of life. The school’s goal is to make that way of life rub off on students.
Spirit Week, in a certain sense, is an initiation. It is a time for new students to see what MC is all about. It is a way that students build this brotherhood that is talked so much about.
“What we do is we just try to get all students together,” said Mr. Brooks Nevrly, MC English teacher and Student Council moderator who also coordinates Spirit Week. “Once the freshmen are integrated and comfortable in their classes is building that camaraderie. It’s just a chance for kids to have fun and really try to see each other.”
More than just trying to build a community within the student body, MC staff is trying to build a community within the school.
“School spirit is not innately born in people,” said Mr. Nevrly. “It has to be taught, so that’s where we really try to implement that in terms of supporting MC not just as an institution, but supporting their fellow peers. Cheering for your buddy that is playing in the basketball game is not only fun, but it’s healthy, so that’s something we really try to do.”
Cheering for your buddy, though, is still part of it, as well as every other activity. On Monday, all four classes participated in basketball against one another in the Alumni Gym. At the end, the teachers formed a team and came out and played against the seniors. The basketball game is always a fan favorite.
Tuesday was mass, then Wednesday was Taste of MC. Students bought tickets for food, each item usually costing between one and three tickets. Foods from all cultures are served everywhere in The Commons and outside the gym, such as sweets, cultural dishes, and other things that people just bring from home like donuts or coffee.
Taste of MC was followed by dodgeball on Thursday, then floor hockey on Friday. The setup was the same as Monday’s basketball game, just with different people (and somehow a higher temperature in the Alumni Gym).
But Spirit Week isn’t just about Taste of MC, intramural sports, and wearing that one Hawaiian shirt that makes one look like Ace Ventura. After all, MC is a Catholic school, and religion is a staple of everything the community does.
“We hope that we create an environment with the things we do in terms of prayer and in terms of the way that we try to foster brotherhood, as well as the ways we try to get students to serve, that it becomes the way students see the world,” said Theology teacher and campus minister Mr. John Stimler. “The image that we often use is the water in the sea. The fish are in the sea, and the fish don’t even realize that they are in water. Our hope is that a student that comes here for whatever reason doesn’t just get what he came here for, but also the full impact of a Carmel education.”
This Spirit Week mass in particular was a special one. Freshman and transfer students were given their scapulars, a rite of passage as an MC student. Senior Marty Mann and sophomore Aaron Hyler gave speeches about a Carmelite retreat they went on. Leading mass was an MC alum, Father Mike Joyce ’01.
Spirit Week is obviously not an MC specific thing. Almost every school does a special week leading up to Homecoming.
“Everything is a build up,” said Mr. Nevrly. “If you have just the dance and nothing leading up to it, then I think some of those things kind of go by the wayside. Part of school spirit is about being in the right environment. It’s hard to want to have school spirit when these things just kind of show up on a random day.”
But for students who maybe do not really have as much of a big-picture idea of what is going on at school, it’s more about having fun.
“When I was a freshman, I didn’t really know what to expect with Spirit Week,” said senior Matt Murphy, “but it was really electric and [fellow senior] Grant Best hit a couple [three-point shots in the gym], and it was really fun to watch, so that kind of gave me the inspiration to play in the basketball game this year.”
Mr. Nevrly also brought up basketball as a Spirit Week staple.
“You really see who supports who during the basketball game,” he said. “For example, [MC junior] Joey Barnes was playing in the basketball game, and every time he went for a jump shot or a layup, you could see like twelve of his friends stand up and cheer him on.”
And that is what Spirit Week is all about–coming together as a community to celebrate the MC community.
