At the recent Willympic events, a record number of day students came storming onto Sawyer Field ready to compete.
After multiple years of not competing as a separate group, day students were finally allowed to have a separate team for this year’s Willympics. For the first night of events in the all-school competition, day student participation was higher than ever. Students from middle school to senior year showed up in coordinating camouflaged outfits, blasting music as they ran onto the field.
Day students and each dorm on campus have their own team in which they compete in a multitude of activities. Some of these include a Spikeball tournament, musical chairs, and a round of “riddle-me-this.” Day students came prepared to the games with a painted banner, a can-do attitude, and winning mentality.
Sarah Markey, Class President, day student and leader of the Wildest Cats (the student-led activities group who works to plan Willympics), believes strong student leadership was the reason behind a large day student turnout.
“I think participation is greater this year than in past years because the senior class is just so strong,” Sarah said. “There are so many day students in the senior class who really love Williston and care about the community. The seniors have been leading by example, which has drawn participation from other grades.”
She also credits last year’s Covid restrictions for high participation this year. After missing out on last year’s fun activities, students are eager to engage in all of the fun activities.
In previous years, there had been a boy and a girl day student team. However, numbers for both teams were extremely low. Because of this, administration opted to disassemble both teams, giving day students the option to join a dorm.
Erin Davey, Assistant Dean of Students and Director of Community Life, is in charge of planning Willympic events. She did not like the idea about the decision to get rid of a day student team altogether.
“It didn’t feel right, it didn’t feel good that the day students weren’t their own team,” she said.
The first night of competition took place Saturday, Sep. 18.
Davey was pleased with the level of participation and credits it to impressive senior leadership.
“It’s always leadership; when there is a strong contingent of upper school leadership, and people who can help organize, get materials, make things happen — teams are only as good as their leadership,” she said. “And so I felt like the senior, upperclassmen leadership was really, really strong this year.”
Not only were day students excited they could compete, but boarders were also thrilled their fellow classmates could have their own team. Rosie Crooker ’22 was thrilled to see day students competing separately.
“I am so excited that we have a day student team in Willympics,” she said. “Seeing all the day students rally together was so exciting, and I can’t wait to see how they do in the lip sync. As a boarder, I’m honestly a little bit intimidated.”
Sarah recognized her team’s disadvantage, but said it wasn’t going to be a problem.
“We don’t have a dorm parent to help us plan and we also don’t really have time to meet,” she said. “I also think because it’s really not required if you are a day student, that does give us a disadvantage compared to the dorms who have a required participation.”
While she has her concerns, Sarah also realizes her team’s advantages.
“We do have an advantage as the day student team because we have so many more numbers, we have boys and we have girls, and there are just so more many day students,” she said.
Davey is not worried that the day student team will be disadvantaged, and in fact believes the opposite.
“If done right, you actually have an advantage because you have across all ages, across all genders, across all areas of Western Mass.,” she said. “And you have bigger numbers, so in actuality, if done right, you are actually at an advantage.”