On March Madness Game Day 2018, red, white, blue, green, and yellow painted faces entered the Dizzy Gillespie Auditorium as excited students wore their colors. They participated in the finale of the annual March Madness tradition that brings Academy students together through friendly competition and pumps up school spirit for the remainder of the year.

In both the small and large gyms, Dwight Morrow students wore class colors of pink, red, blue and black to show their school spirit on March Madness game day as they enjoyed time with classmates and competed with all of their peers.

Despite time constraints, scheduling difficulties, and long hours of preparation, March and Morrow Madness took place on Wednesday March 28, 2018. It was a half day due to parent conferences later that day which had been rescheduled for the week before but postponed due to the huge snow storm.

“We had the option to move Game Day to April, but opted to work with the half day to keep the games in March,” March Madness organizer Christina McGrath explained.

The games began sixth period and lasted until the end of the half day. The Academies departed from the usual sequence of events because of the shortened schedule and put the big event first: the “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” competition for the best Academy.

There were lots of laughs as IT, Finance, and Pre-Engineering Academies competed, but tension began to swell up when the Biomedicine Academy was on stage: students in the crowd began to shout answers, giving the team on stage the chance to change a wrong answer to a right one. At first this resulted in the academy getting a warning, but later they lost points. Ultimately, the Law and Public Safety Academy (LPS) made it closest to a million dollars and won this game.

“It was disappointing that March Madness was truncated this year, but the shortened schedule did not dampen the spirit of Law Academy students. They went all out in an amazing blaze of yellow!”  LPS program manager Roslyn Powell exclaimed.

Each year a different Academy has won since its creation 15 years ago, but this year was different: LPS won for a second time in two years. Yellow clad LPS students flooded the stage screaming with joy and pride.

“LPS IS THE BEST! It’s pretty awesome that we made history,” junior Veronica Papianni said.

The Finance Academy came in second, Pre-Engineering third, Biomedicine was fourth and Information Systems last.

Dwight Morrow games were organized by Student Council co-advisers Danielle O’Shea and Eric Lax along with a lot of help from Richard Suchanski, Director of Athletics, and members of the physical education department. The faculty and students worked together to create these activities for Morrow Madness game day.

“The students were excited to watch their classes compete in the games,” Ms. O’Shea said. “I was overwhelmed with gratitude for how many staff members were willing to help and even showcase some of their skills. Having members of the band play in the stands was a nice touch, too!” she added.

The games included basketball and volleyball competitions and a relay challenge. There were four tasks in the relay including finding small balls in a bin, kicking a soccer ball into a net three times, stacking plastic cups in a pyramid, and then finally completing a kids puzzle. Juniors won the basketball competition and seniors won the relay.

Ms. McGrath was happy all the games succeeded, but admitted it was more of a struggle to organize again this year due to additional schedule changes. However, the 2018 March Madness tradition took place and rekindled some school spirit across the campus.

“I feel very confident about the future of March Madness, and the spirit of the Academies and school,” emcee Kyle Castillo said.  “If next year is like this one, students and faculty will grow strong and passionate.”