The bleachers, filled with students sporting their team colors, erupted in cheers as the green team pulled the blue team across the line in a game of tug-of-war.
“Knight Games was to get the ball rolling with something we all enjoy,” Upper School (US) Student Body Co-President Aparajita Srivastava ’25 said.
Kicking off the first Knight Games of this school year, students gathered at the Nicholas Athletic Center on Friday, Sept. 6 of orientation week for a rock, paper, scissors tournament and a tug-of- war game between the four Knight Games teams—red, green, blue, and gold— before choosing one of many activities to participate in, such as basketball, soccer, or “drop everything and read” in the library. Student Body Co-Presidents Niyam Badani ’25 and Aparajita planned and facilitated the school- wide assembly.
“Student Council has a fair amount of input into Knight Games,” Aparajita said. “Niyam and I definitely want to have that be more student-driven.”
Student Council first started planning at the end of last school year. The original plan was a 30-minute school- wide activity, the rock, paper, scissors tournament and tug-of-war, followed by two 30-minute activities where students split off into smaller groups.
However, when the allotted Knight Games block was shortened to 85 minutes at the start of the school year, Student Council’s original plan was changed to feature different activities after the school-wide event. Still, the change did not prevent Knight Games from being successful, Aparajita said.
“I think the biggest success from my perspective is that people could choose where they could go. I went to the marshmallow tower, and that was really successful because people were excited to be there.”
Students were able to choose how they engaged with Knight Games, which was especially important to making it enjoyable, Aparajita said.
“That’s something that we want to prioritize—a choose- your-own-adventure type rather than ‘here’s a spreadsheet, here’s what you’re assigned’ because Knight Games should be fun.”
The games have been less successful in the past when people were assigned to an activity, Aparajita said. This time, she felt that they were more engaging, even if the choices meant some activities had higher numbers of participants than others.
“I think we accept, and we take on that level of chaos, such as the unpredictable numbers. We take that on so that people are a lot more engaged and happier.”
The goal of the school-wide activities is to rally enthusiasm while everyone is together, he said.
However, the organizers had to ensure they didn’t overdo it either, Niyam said.
“One of the biggest difficulties we face is there are always more things we want to do, but there’s a psychological aspect of students where even if there are more fun games, if it’s too long in their eyes, they’re going to enjoy it less rather than if there were a few nice things and a shorter block.”
Student Council is still trying to find the right balance between games and a typical school day during Orientation Week, he said.
“More is not always better, and so we have to: think, ‘On that specific day, what do we want to do?’”
That’s why a big focus of Knight Games is creating team spirit within the four color teams, Niyam said.
“If your color sticks with you for four years, and you’re doing enough games with it each year, then it should be something that you’re pretty proud of and enthusiastic about. We have to make sure that we can build community in that type of way because that’s a big goal.”
Some of the people responsible for drumming up that support are the Knight Games captains. Haley Hicks ’25, a captain for the green team, said her role was to help organize the team and inspire spirit during the school-wide events.
“We were motivators. We wore green. We yelled at a lot of people.”
She said that this year’s Knight Games was one of the most successful she has experienced.
“There was definitely a good vibe for the student body. We’re really excited to get the freshmen in there as well.”
Allison Wang ’25 enjoyed seeing the community support each other during the school- wide activities.
“I liked seeing everyone in the school together having a good time. Watching tug-of-war was especially fun, and I liked how much each team cheered for the person representing them. It gave me a strong sense of community.”
However, she found that the activities were not as well-run as she had expected.
“I was in the marshmallow tower activity, and it took almost more time to just set up than to build the towers,” she said. “I had fun, but the restrictions in the materials, such as the limit of one marshmallow per tower, made it so challenging that the activity was almost just not as fun. I think it would’ve been better to have fewer restrictions so that people could come up with a concrete idea and just have fun while meeting new students.”
Lorenzo Blackston ’26 said he appreciated being able to spend time with his friends, rather than in class, during Orientation Week.
“Knight Games is a really great opportunity for everyone to get to know each other. Everyone’s so caught up in schoolwork sometimes that they just forget to hang out with their friends. I really appreciate that BB&N sets up these opportunities for everyone to get to know each other and become a ‘commuKnighty.’”
