RUMPUS is one of the biggest events all school year at Darlington. It starts on a Friday after school and goes into Saturday. It is all the houses competing again each other in different categories. There is dodgeball, relay, trivia, gauntlet, lip-sync, and other activities throughout Friday and Saturday. Throughout these categories, there are points for each challenge you win, and it all totals up to decide the winner of RUMPUS. A controversial part of this are spirit points, which are determined by judges based on your energy and sportsmanship. Some think they are good to keep competition alive, while others think it has room to be rigged.
“Mr. Evans, Mrs. Inman, Mr. Woods, Mr. Bell, and just the neutral admin are usually in charge of monitoring and officiating the spirit points. Spirit points are there because we want RUMPUS to be fun and competitive. We also want our students to represent Darlington, themselves, and their house in the best way, so spirit points are a lot like character points. Are you being super loud, excited, cleaning up after your team, being kind to other teams, and giving your absolute best effort? These sort of things are what are helping get your team spirit points,” Dean of Students Tiera Everhart said.
Along with Mrs. Everhart opinion about spirit points, senior Murray Ellington agrees, but thinks a rubric should be in place to ensure the houses can maximize spirit points.
“I like spirit points because they show how excited and how respectful your house is during the weekend of RUMPUS. I think it’s good that they don’t announce spirit points until after all the events are over and that they decide on them before lip sync, so that they can’t rig the final score. However, I do think they need more of a rubric/guideline for each house, so you can know the maximum possible points because that would help the leaders implement how to achieve this maximum,” Ellington said.
****Spirit points are also in place to keep the competition fun and alive so its not dull and it helps deal with bad sportsmanship.****
“Spirit points are points that represent those intangible things that are not necessarily an event but could help you in the long run with points. For how they track spirit points, teachers and faculty members do kind of watch, but mainly the admins are just watching. They’re really looking at overall spirit of that team or that house during the competition. I love spirit points because, like I said, it’s character; it’s who you are. When the competition’s not going your way, it shows who you are. When the competition is going your way, it also shows who you are to the people around you during the competition. So I’m a big fan of spirit,” Everhart said.