{"id":9662,"date":"2023-06-02T12:24:07","date_gmt":"2023-06-02T17:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/?p=9662"},"modified":"2023-06-02T12:24:07","modified_gmt":"2023-06-02T17:24:07","slug":"new-tradition-on-the-block","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/?p=9662","title":{"rendered":"New Tradition on the Block"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Field day has become a staple in the final semester of school. It gives students a break from classes, but why does it exist alongside intramurals? The school is strict about missing class days, so why do students get an afternoon out of classes right before finals?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Field day started as a substitute for intramural basketball during the aftermath of Covid-19. Because students could not be near each other, the school needed an activity that would take place outside. The competitive nature is upheld through volleyball, basketball, and kickball matches. This is when field day was born.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mr. Matt Dempsey helped set up the first field day in the spring of the 2020-2021 school year. Its origins are unknown, however. \u201cI want to say it was an idea that originated with Father Friend,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was what I would call a \u2018lunchroom\u2019 idea. It was just thrown out there like \u2018Hey, this is something that would be cool.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The school wanted something positive to come from Covid-19. Mr. Dempsey said, \u201cIf anything good could come from Covid, this is it. Covid was such a negative experience for everybody. We thought because we had to go through all the things we had to go through we should at least get something positive out of it. So, how about field day?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Junior John Tobin loves field day because of its competitive nature. \u201cIt is one last hoorah for the seniors as well as the last time the whole student body gets to come together and compete,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The existence of field day has created some drawbacks that have come to the attention of the faculty. Mr. Dempsey said, \u201cWith anything like this, you always have to balance culture versus other interests like academics. You will get different opinions from different people, but as long as the administration thinks that the cultural benefits outweigh the negatives, we would like to keep doing it.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The cultural benefits of field day fight the drawbacks. \u201cI like to think this has enhanced the culture of our school a little bit,\u201d said Mr. Dempsey. \u201cI think that is valuable. It has enhanced [the culture] enough to overcome the negatives of being out of class. We already have a pretty strong culture, but this is still pretty cool.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Just like every activity at the school, field day has some limitations. Mr. Dempsey said, \u201cI think [field day will last]. With anything that you do, over time,\u00a0 people tend to abuse it or take advantage of it. So, if we can assume that does not happen, then I think this is something that can go on indefinitely. It can become a real tradition at Catholic High like tie-burning. It has the potential to become an entrenched tradition.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tobin hopes that field day stays a part of the school\u2019s legacy as years go on. He said, \u201c<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I know that field day is more recent, but in my Catholic High experience, I\u2019ve come to love and expect it because it\u2019s all I\u2019ve known. It is also just a really fun experience for the end of the year and helps to ease us into our exams.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<div data-opinionstage-embed-url=\"https:\/\/www.opinionstage.com\/api\/v1\/placements\/3498975\/code.json\" style=\"display: none; visibility: hidden;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Field day has become a staple in the final semester of school. It gives students a break from classes, but why does it exist alongside intramurals? The school is strict about missing class days, so why do students get an afternoon out of classes right before finals? Field day started as a substitute for intramural&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":9688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[196],"tags":[143],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/liftoffnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/IMG_7878-e1683947714550.jpg?fit=4160%2C6240&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3xfZw-2vQ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9662"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9662"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9663,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9662\/revisions\/9663"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}