Spirit Week Psyches Campus for St. Mark's Day
Students showed off unique talents (arm wrestling and limbo?), donned costumes to match daily themes, and generally got rowdy all week long. February 20–25 was Spirit Week, a sort of extended pep rally to psyche up the campus for Saturday's athletic games against longtime rival St. Mark’s School.
Every term, Spirit Week precedes St. Mark’s Day, honoring an athletic rivalry that dates back to 1886. The dress-up days and unconventional mid-morning contests build energy and enthusiasm, which carry over to the sidelines on Saturday.
Spirit Week is also a dormitory competition, and Groton's dorms accrued points for creative costumes and announcements and for winning the various challenges. The fun began on Monday, with students dressing as their roommates, making some noticeably more or less fashionable than usual.
Tuesday’s “Tropical Day” brought out the hula skirts and Hawaiian shirts. On Wednesday, students dressed in various types of camouflage, and on Thursday they channeled their idols for GOAT (Greatest Of All Time) Day. Fresh Friday was open to interpretation: one student wore a bathrobe and handed out deodorant, while another dressed as fresh fruit in a banana costume.
The mini-competitions during conference period got sillier as the week wore on, from arm wrestling and limbo to a bathroom tissue unrolling race and a thrilling game of “pin the tail on the zebra” that featured dorm heads and other campus adults.
Dormmates and friends cheered each other on throughout the week, but the whole Groton community roots for the big win on Saturday. Beat St. Mark’s!
See photos from Spirit Week.
Watch Groton faculty members (and good sports) play "pin the tail on the zebra."
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