Ryan Gloyer Middle School hosts Olympic Day
JACKSON TWP — Friday was not a normal school day for the seventh and eighth graders of Ryan Gloyer Middle School. It was Olympic Day, as nearly the entire student body of the school took the chance to participate in some friendly competition.
Events took place all over the Seneca Valley campus, including NexTier Stadium and Seneca Valley’s aquatic center, and even the middle school cafeteria.
In the spirit of the real-life Olympic Games, students at RGMS were broken up into teams representing entire nations, with a different nation assigned to each homeroom. In total, there were 10 teams of students — five from seventh grade and five from eighth grade — with each team consisting of five homerooms.
While some homerooms had their countries assigned to them, others had the opportunity to pick theirs, such as Owen Herrick’s eighth grade room.
“We picked team Belize out of, I think, five different countries,” Herrick said. Herrick’s team pulled off what he considered an “upset win” in the semifinals of the three-on-three soccer competition against team France.
Another room that got to choose their nation was Team Ireland. They were represented by eighth grade math teacher Kaylene Ireland, whose class — in her words — “begged for Ireland.”
“We just had three kids come up to us and say they won their event,” Ireland said. “Girls’ and boys’ sprints and boys’ long jump so far.”
There were takes on conventional Olympic sports, including three-on-three soccer, curling, swimming and track-and-field competitions.
However, some of the events contested during Olympic Day are sports that you probably won’t be seeing at the real-life Olympic Games in Paris in 2024. Students participated in events such as football throwing, paper airplane tossing, Scrabble and a home run derby.
One of the most intense competitions of all was the “duck walk,” where four students strapped their feet on to wooden boards and competed to set the fastest time walking around a course. One of the fastest times was recorded by the eighth grade class representing Greenland, who came across the finish line in 1:52.8.
Throughout the duck walk, other students loudly cheered on their teammates and blew their vuvuzelas. Throughout the day, it was impossible to escape the noise of the vuvuzela, the instrument that famously made an appearance at the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Student competitors blew them incessantly when transporting from event to event.
“One of the teams sold them as a fundraiser, and that noise has been complementing the day now,” said event organizer and RGMS assistant principal Robert Raso. “You hear it everywhere. On the buses, in the classrooms … you name it, they’ve been playing them.”
