Junior class president Abbie Miller sat in her Student Government classroom and tried to assemble an unbeatable team for Table Surfing at the first pep rally of the year.
“We put together football players, cheerleaders and athletes so we could win,” said Miller.
Table Surfing is a game in which one person tries to stay upright on a folding table while the other players lay beneath the table and move it. People can roll, pull and push, but must be lying on the floor.
During the first pep rally of the year, the classes faced off against each other. The first round pitted the juniors against the sophomores and the seniors against the freshmen.
“We all tried to incorporate really crowd engaging activities to develop our pep rally and be more spirited and inclusive,” Miller said.
Junior Rayden DeSouza, a varsity wrestler, was chosen as the surfer for the junior team — the person to stand on the table.
“I’m guessing it was because I’m like the lightest in the grade and it’d be easier to have me on the table,” DeSouza said.
After beating the sophomores in the first round, the juniors huddled together to strategize over the championship round. Their previous strategy, which was rolling their bodies underneath the table, was uncomfortable and inefficient, with people rolling at different speeds and running over each other.
“At one point I was stuck underneath just hoping someone would move it from over me,” Miller said. “I got a bruise on my knee and a scrape on my ankle from rolling and getting trampled.”
While they were waiting to see who their competition would be, the juniors noticed that the seniors were simply lying down on their backs and pulling the table.
“We fixed a few things,” DeSouza said. “Like, instead of everybody rolling with the table, we pulled it, because it was faster that way. We kind of took the idea from the seniors. But we worked it better, obviously.”
After the seniors beat the freshmen, the juniors and seniors competed for the ultimate title. The juniors ended up winning the day.
“We knew the sophomores were going to be easy, so I already had my eyes on the cup,” junior Owen Park said. “And then when I saw the seniors, I just knew. The seniors, they can’t hang with us juniors. Just like every year – Beefcake, Powder Puff. You name it, we got it.”