A crowded gymnasium watched as several members of the various winter sports teams, such as swim and dive, gymnastics, winter track and wrestling, gathered together on Dec. 21 to celebrate another season. This year’s holiday theme included a “pep” Santa Claus who ran through the gym to get the crowd excited, holiday music playing as different teams introduced their athletes, and the boy’s senior swim team running through the gym in Santa hats and speedos when they were announced.
“I definitely liked this pep rally a lot,” senior Ann Marie Frankfurt said. “It was great when the boys swim team ran through in their speedos and threw candy at us in the stands.”
The boys senior swim team had to go through administration to get wearing their speedos approved. As of Dec. 11, administration had issued a new policy towards team attire at pep rallies: there would be “no inappropriate attire i.e. Swim Team Speedo’s, no costumes, and no hats.” This information was sent out to winter sports coaches by Director of Student Services Karl Kerns, but boys swim team co-captians Stephen Oakes and Paul Helfgott met with Principal Vincent Randazzo to reapprove their outfits.
“I’d heard that they weren’t going to be able to wear their speedos, so it was surprising when I saw them run out with them on,” senior Beatrice Ohene-Okae said.
“We weren’t planning on doing anything inappropriate, we just were going to run through the gym in our speedos,” Oakes said. “I’m glad administration let us do it, since people see us in them at meets all of the time and it wouldn’t be any different. It’s been a tradition at Annandale for a while, so it wouldn’t have been fair to make us break it.”
The pep rally began with a holiday-themed dance by the Atomic Dance Team, who wore red and gold outfits. This was followed by an introduction of the several winter sports teams and games that included wrapping their coaches or throwing wreaths over other team members.
“It was a really fun pep rally and I enjoyed going,” senior Paula Naanou said.
Sarah Metzel • Dec 21, 2012 at 5:52 pm
The speedos were a success! A lot of people (mostly girls) said that was the only reason they showed up!