The week before Homecoming might be the most nerve wracking, exciting week of the school year. Everyone is planning their outfits to go along with the Spirit Days and doing last-minute shopping for the dance. With all this excitement comes a little “friendly” competition between classes.
In my senior year, I wanted to make this Spirit Week the best one yet. It seemed that that was the goal of the rest of my class and even the grades below us, as well. The infamous Color Wars have everyone talking and planning. In 2011, the Color Wars were officially cancelled. Unfortunately for those who wish to promote school spirit over class spirit, nobody really cares. According to tradition, the freshmen wear gray, sophomores white, juniors black, and the seniors red–and we aren’t about to stop anytime soon.
So, what’s the problem with a little competition between classes? Everyone dressed in spirit wear, going all out with face paint and glitter sounds like exactly what student activities director Jessica Ogulnik wanted in her letter. She said herself that there when she came to Niles West in 2004 no one had any spirit, so she created Color Wars to bring it back. The students soaked it up like a sponge, loving the opportunity to bring some pep back within the walls of West.
The class of 2011 took the whole school spirit thing very seriously, rioting in the halls and tearing down other class decorations. I know that it got out of hand, but that doesn’t mean that the years to come are going to do the same thing. They shouldn’t have to miss out on something that is very memorable in high school. Every class is different and they should have the opportunity to show their school spirit.
This brings me to last week’s Homecoming assembly. This assembly has the highest attendance out of all of the assemblies. It is the one assembly where everyone’s stirring with excitement and on their toes for the performances they get to see. The cheering competitions are always a big factor in revving up the crowd. In past years, the person at the microphone starts off with the usual: “where’s my class of ____?” A little something to get the crowd going; this year, we were all missing that.There was hardly any chance for us to show how much spirit we have for our school, much less our classes.
I know that student government is trying to push school spirit instead of class spirit, but honestly, it’s never going to happen. We all love screaming our year of graduation at the top of our lungs. Senior year is when things really get loud. We love banging on buckets, blowing horns, throwing toilet paper rolls, glitter, spraying silly string, and using thunder sticks. Looking at the pictures from the assembly, the gym looks great with all the flashes of red, white, black, and gray.
The assembly was only an hour long, but there was plenty of time for some quality cheering and class representation. We had a half an hour’s worth of amazing performances, and a half an hour of videos overplaying the new popular song “Gangnam Style.” It’s catchy, I know, but it gets a tad annoying after the third time around. If we had cut back on a little bit of time with all of the videos we could have cheered a lot more. It felt like one of the most important parts of the assembly was missing.
Fast forward to next year, lets hope that the Color Wars are officially brought back; either way, they’re going to happen. The teachers need to know that just because we represent our class, it doesn’t mean we’re not representing our school as a whole.
Sam Shemroske • Oct 15, 2012 at 1:18 PM
I agree that the Color War will go on. I think that it is a tradition that will lasts forever in every school in the world. It’s not like they can suspend half the school for wearing a red t-shirt. Without color in a school there would be no spirit and it would ruin the tradition “We Bleed Red.” So that is what makes the Vikings are enemy. So school spirit should stick around and the Color Wars will not end.
Delanie Kwiecinski • Oct 15, 2012 at 1:14 PM
I think that the color wars show our school spirit and with out spirit our school day and sports games would not be fun.
F.H • Oct 15, 2012 at 1:14 PM
I agree with the article. People should be able to have class spirit and represent there own grade. Its part of the excitement and thrill of being a freshman, sophomore,junior or senior.
Valy • Oct 15, 2012 at 1:12 PM
Color wars is very exciting for the students because they get to show off their so i dont think it will end anytime soon
Mark Salivo • Oct 15, 2012 at 1:12 PM
This article is very true because even tho they took away the class colors kids will still do it no matter what the teachers and security guards do. It is what we do do and how we show our school spirit and that we support our class. So there is no point in banning the colors for classes because we will still wear the colors and I hope it comes back.
Kyle Lieu • Oct 15, 2012 at 1:12 PM
wow i totally agree with you. The class of 2011 did take it too far and we shouldn’t tear down decorations of different grades that just mean!
Anonymous • Oct 15, 2012 at 1:12 PM
i think color wars will continue just because its a tradition and students will some how always continue to have color wars by having a event on fb or any how get a class to wear certain colors.
Brandon Costantino • Oct 15, 2012 at 1:11 PM
I agree 100% with this!
Adam Blaylock • Oct 15, 2012 at 1:10 PM
I think the color wars are harmless and just because things got out of hand for the class of 2011, doesn’t mean that it is going to happen every year. Besides, it’s gonna happen eitheir way because the students will still dress in their class colors.
Greg Solawa • Oct 15, 2012 at 1:10 PM
I agree the color wars wont end because it has been a school tradition since ’04 and they aren’t miraculously going to end them. The seniors always want to be on top of all the other classes and show that they are the best. Then following that the juniors want to be the next ones on top and follow the seniors. So my conclusion is that they will not end anytime soon or ever.
Vanessa • Oct 15, 2012 at 1:09 PM
While reading this article I couldn’t disagree with anything that Jackie has stated. The color wars aren’t as big of a deal as people make them at times. The pep assemblies do get out of hand at times, and people over react with the ”friendly” class competitions, and things most of the time do get out of control. The security guards try as hard they can to not let anything out of control happen, but people still try to test the limits, and try to do to get their year remembered in a way like the 2010 class when things went really out of control and ”raged”.
parsa • Oct 15, 2012 at 1:08 PM
I think that we should officially have the color wars back because school spirit is important to many people and it represents many of the classes
Iram • Oct 15, 2012 at 1:07 PM
I agree a 100% with this. Everyone likes the competitiveness that the color war brings. It makes everything way funner.
Greg • Oct 15, 2012 at 1:06 PM
The color wars will go on because of band wagons between friends until everyone joins in.
HARSEBLARGH • Oct 15, 2012 at 1:06 PM
Well, wearing school colors during an assembly to show your support never hurt anyone. So long as nothing gets out of hand, it’s fine. Fun, even. Students won’t stop if teachers tell them to. We’re teenagers, what would you honestly think?
Celeste • Oct 15, 2012 at 1:04 PM
I loved the color wars. It was fun thing to do to bring up the spirt and i definntilly agree that each class loves to chant there graduation year, it bring the whole competition to another level.
Shanelle • Oct 15, 2012 at 1:04 PM
I think color wars are fine cuz we representing our year and it ok
Jocelyn Rodriguez • Oct 15, 2012 at 1:04 PM
Classes like to cheer for their own graduting grade more than any other grades, because their APART of something. They share the excitement for that year so it’s more like exciting and meangingful. Why would you cheer or even care about something that doesn’t concern or involve you? When you’re part of something, you have more spirit and more excitement towards it.
Maya Caballero • Oct 15, 2012 at 1:04 PM
I like the color wars, it adds more school spirit to our school. It shows how much pride we have for our sports teams, and how much we love our school. I feel like the juniors and seniors have a competition with which class has the most school spirit.
Trisha • Oct 15, 2012 at 12:16 PM
I think that they should continue the color wars because there is nothing wrong with representing your school colors.
Plus without color wars there wouldn’t be much school spirit and the pep assembly be as much fun.
Ryan Firozabadi • Oct 15, 2012 at 12:09 PM
I agree with this article. Color wars cannot, because it is the same as saying do not wear that shirt. If color wars bring up more school spirit then this should be continued.
Madeline Burbach • Oct 15, 2012 at 12:07 PM
The color wars add more school spirit and fun to homecoming week and as long as students overpower the Niles West staff, color wars will never end. Y.O.S.O
Dona • Oct 15, 2012 at 12:01 PM
I agree with Jackie. The color wars are not going to end just because it is not official. I think the school should make it official because it is when different classes to represent their spirit. School spirit is important, but it is also important to show class spirit, especially for the upperclassmen.
Sal • Oct 15, 2012 at 11:59 AM
color wars are awesome. they make school for fun. and it expresses how we feel.
stuart • Oct 15, 2012 at 11:58 AM
I think that color war is a day that we should all enjoy. Its not going to be hazardous because we would have school spirit everyday. Just because we wear a curtain colored shirt, doesn’t make us anymore excited or happy. The school cant stop it anyway so they’re just wasting there time. Its not like teachers can be like, hey your not suppose to wear black today. Now would that make scene.
Adam • Oct 15, 2012 at 11:58 AM
i think that even if they tried to stop the color wars it wouldnt really work because the seniors and juniors would still show their class spirit by wearing their colors. the school cant really get the whole school or even two classes in trouble for showing class and school spirit. the whole idea of trying to stop the color wars is not going to happen because they dont have enough power to stop the whole school or classes.
George Tripkos • Oct 15, 2012 at 11:58 AM
Color Wars have become too much of a tradition to just forget. You don’t just stop something the school has been doing since ’04. The senior classes are always going to try and top each other every year. Also, the Junior and Senior classes have to much pride not to compete at every assembly. The class competitions will continue whether we like it or not.
James Sutfin • Oct 15, 2012 at 11:56 AM
There is nothing wrong with competition between each grade. We should be able to have color wars.
Will • Oct 15, 2012 at 11:56 AM
I think its going to continue for years to come. The administration can not do anything about .
Jackie • Oct 15, 2012 at 11:54 AM
I agree with this article because without school spirit our school would be really boring and our sports teams would really stink. I also think that there would be no point of having a pep assembly if no one had any spirit because it would be really boring and irrelevant. I don’t think it would be a good idea to stop color wars because its meant to show what class your in, especially if your a senior and your only a senior once so there’s no reason why its wrong to show that your proud of being a senior by wearing the color red.
Priscilla • Oct 15, 2012 at 11:53 AM
The color wars is great. It’s not going to end it’ll still keep going on. There’s already too many people that know about it. And if the underclass men don’t know about it people can make groups on FB or forward a text to everyone they know. And BOOM the color wars will continue.
Mohammad Hasan • Oct 15, 2012 at 11:52 AM
I didn’t really understand what was going on. But the minute I walked into school my friend asked why I wasn’t wearing black. I asked why? He told me because we were juniors. I see why all the classes do this. To be part of larger group but classify themselves as different classes.
Tatiana Lukac • Oct 15, 2012 at 11:52 AM
I agree
Marly • Oct 15, 2012 at 11:51 AM
I agree with “it doesn’t mean we’re not representing our school as a whole.” There’s nothing wrong with representing your class, everyone is still wearing the school colors, anyway. It’s fine if it doesn’t get to the point where one class is ripping down another class’ posters or rioting ends in people getting injured. Then it just gets obnoxious. People will do Color Wars regardless.
Christine Ewan • Oct 15, 2012 at 11:50 AM
I totally agree with this article. We need to have class spirit and a little competition just to make everything a little more exciting. Even if they don’t bring back the color wars it doesn’t matter because we’re all going to end up having them anyways. And just because you aren’t introduced to the color wars doesn’t mean that you can’t spread the word about them and let everyone know what’s going on. Everyone enjoys the thrill of shouting out the year they graduate, so why try and stop that too?
Former Student* • Oct 13, 2012 at 6:28 PM
The color wars will not go away sadly. It just takes a group of friends to organized this kind of collaboration between each grade level. In addition. it is really hard to enforce this. In order to have school spirit, you have to have class spirit. By showing class spirit just strengthens the overall school spirit in my opinion. I remember our class, Class of 2010, in our last assembly, we were told to wear white to show solidarity between the senior class and there is nothing wrong with that. We are also encourage to bring buckets as well which was awesome.
anon • Oct 13, 2012 at 4:23 PM
I don’t think it’ll continue after this year. Mostly because the class of 2014 was the last year to be introduced to the Color Wars. During the pep assembly the juniors wore black, the seniors were decked out in red, and the stands holding the underclassmen were scattered with bits of red, white, and other random colors.
Jackie Povitsky • Oct 15, 2012 at 10:30 AM
Well, when I was a lower classman, we never really participated in the homecoming assembly. We were at the top of the stands, too far for anyone to see. Plus, there was no organization. It’s mainly the juniors and seniors that have all the class spirit. I’m sure that after this year, students are still going to participate in color wars.
Anonymous • Oct 15, 2012 at 11:53 AM
As a sophomore this year, I participated a little by wearing a white shirt. I was surprised to learn that someone actually planned it on Facebook because I never heard about it. I just heard it from my team that we’re going to wear white. I’m pretty sure that there will be a copious amount of people wearing all black for their Junior year. Freshman can’t care less about School Spirit.
Old guy...well sort of • Oct 13, 2012 at 2:26 PM
You guys really have a lot of school spirit now. Back in the late 90s when I went to Niles West, a lot of people would try to ditch the pep assemblies. Security would sweep the whole building to try to herd people into the gym, but if you found a place to hide long enough for them to sweep the building you were basically home free because all of the security was then in the gym and nobody was watching the rest of the building. I think they might have kept an eye on the parking lot too, but since I leaved nearby I’d just make a break for it and walk out the door and out onto the street.