BBO: The Best of All Battles

Ever since the end of Fantastics, there have been rumors of a third and final Wilcox spirit event. At the last sports rally, ASB officially confirmed that Wilcox will be bring back Black and Blue Olympics. BBO will take place on April 21st at the Santa Clara Teen Center; however, many students know little more than that it is a competition between Wilcox and Santa Clara High School. Freshmen and sophomores especially will have no prior knowledge about BBO, given that it did not happen last year.
The reason behind last year’s suspension is hidden beneath layers of misinformation and bias. Although the actual reason for the cancellation is not definitively known, ASB President Joseph Choe speculates that BBO fell through because of a lack of agreement between the two schools. “Santa Clara initially told the director of the Teen Center that they would rather do a party or carnival with Wilcox instead of an actual competition,” Choe explains. Many suspect that the reason for this request is that Wilcox High School had defeated Santa Clara for the third time in a row. “Wilcox leadership declined Santa Clara’s offer because we wanted to continue the tradition,” continues Choe. “However, we proposed that we modify BBO into a powder puff-style competition, to which Santa Clara declined.” As a result, BBO failed to be arranged, and the annual competition was abandoned.

COURTESY OF LILY SOLOMON                                                                                     The Wilcox Chargers celebrate their victory at the 2015 Black and Blue Olympics.

This year, the seniors at Santa Clara High School who were opposed to the traditional BBO had graduated, and the current Santa Clara student government voted to battle Wilcox High School once again. Choe summarizes BBO as “an event hosted by the Santa Clara Teen Center for students to raise spirit, have fun, and meet new people.” Unlike Fantastics and Homecoming, the competition will not be within Wilcox, and some games will be different from the ones normally performed in our own competitions. The underclassmen who have not experienced this exhilarating event will have the opportunity to display their Wilcox pride by participating in the activities.
Although not all of the games have been revealed, Choe has provided some details on the events, which will be divided by class. The first and perhaps most notable event, Five Minutes of Fame, is a dance competition between the two schools. Dances will presumably recycle choreography from Fantastics and the Battle of the Classes (the Fantastics equivalent for Santa Clara High School). The next games on the agenda will be Tug-o-War and Human Pyramid, and rival classes will go head-to-head in a total of eight separate matches.

The subsequent games will be class exclusive. For freshmen, there will be Skin the Snake, a competition that requires participants to utilize their agility by crawling underneath other contestants to form a moving human chain. The game for the sophomores will not be released until the day of BBO. The junior class will take part in the Hula Hoop Relay, which is a game that requires a row of people to get a hula hoop to travel from one end to the other and back. Participants are supposed to join hands, and they cannot let go of their neighbors’ hands in the process. Finally, seniors will compete in the Orange Necking race, where a row of students must pass an orange from one end to the other and back again using only their neck. The rest of the games remain unconfirmed.
The easiest way to support the Wilcox team is to purchase a BBO shirt from ASB for ten dollars, and a ticket for five. To participate in BBO, students must talk to their class council, who will arrange tryouts to select candidates for the dances and games in a similar fashion to Fantastics. Although BBO is an event designed around friendly competition, Choe emhasizes that there are many other equally worthwhile reasons to go. “BBO is a great way to meet new people and have a lot of fun. It’s breathtaking, exciting, and enjoyable, all at the same time.”