For many students, the middle school pep rallies are some of their favorite parts of the year. It is a time to relax, have fun, and show school spirit. Dean of Students Mr. Jeffrey Cavallo comes up with a number of competitions between the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades that are played in the gym, and it gets intense. Some of the games include relay races involving keeping a tennis ball tucked under one’s chin or a dodgeball squeezed between one’s knees, trivia, and basketball.

The eighth grade won the beginning-of-the-year pep rally by racking up the most points in the competitions, and, as a result, received free Luigi’s Italian Ice from the Buc Café.

Although Cavallo runs the pep rallies a few times each year, he changes it up each time to keep it fresh and new for the students. Cavallo comes up with new challenges and “every year I always try to get more people involved [in each game],” Cavallo said. “ I like to see everyone working together as a team, and I usually just see or hear about some cool event and just add it into our pep rally to change it up every year.”

“My favorite part of the pep rally was when I beatboxed,” said eighth grader Jasper Wright, referring to the fact that Cavallo riled everyone up in the beginning by having Wright beatbox on the microphone in the center of the gym. As a result, Wright got to show off his beatboxing skills in front of the entire Middle School. Wright has practiced beatboxing for an extremely long time and he did not let the middle school down with his skills. “ I was extremely nervous and messed up a few times, but overall it was great,” said Wright.

Other students had their favorite things, too. “The basketball game, because of the energy in the gymnasium and when Marvel dunked,” said eighth grader Mason Sukhu, who also knocked down a bowling pin placed at half court while he was on the baseline to win a competition for the eighth grade a referring to the contest that ended the rally where faculty members joined some of the eighth graders in a friendly competition. Sukhu also knocked down a bowling pin with a tennis ball to win that competition for the eighth grade.

He thinks there may be room for improvement, though. “Have the students versus the faculty instead of [mixed] teams so more students play [in the basketball game],” said Sukhu.
Wright would also like to see more students involved.

“[Sometimes] when they call up five boys and five girls, [often] people have to go back [because they’re not chosen], and I think everyone should be involved,” said Wright.

The basketball game was definitely most of the people’s favorites. This included what might be the first eighth grader to dunk the ball in middle school history, as Cavallo had newcomer Marvel Allen throw it down at the beginning of the pep rally, and then Allen repeated the feat during the game. “It was cool how everyone was watching me and cheering,” said Allen. “I am just happy I did not miss.”

The faculty enjoyed the basketball game as well.

“I like that this year Mr. Cavallo combined the basketball teams to be faculty and students,” said middle school English and History teacher Mr. Nathan Ginnetty. “It’s been a beat down on the students for the past couple of years, so I think it was a little more fair this year.”

Ginnetty also played in the basketball game in the pep rally. His toughest part of the pep rally: “Trying to break through Mr. Crisafi’s lockdown defense…unsuccessfully.”

Overall the pep rally was a hit and got all of the students excited for the new year at TBS.