Last Wednesday, the students of Pascack Valley gathered into the gym for the first time of the new school year. For returning students, we were reminded of the heat that the gym carries due to the excited student body getting ready to compete with their peers. For the freshmen, they were able to experience how eager the upperclassmen were to welcome the underclassmen into their school. I didn’t want to look over when everyone “booed” them because I feel like the sight would have killed angels.

Last year’s emcees were replaced by seniors Else DiGiacapo and Ron Villone, who did a great job together. While most people would say the toughest part of the job is being able to talk to a large crowd, it seemed that the most challenging part of it all is trying to get the microphone to work throughout the event.

The poor microphone has been struggling for years to keep up with the noise of the students, but it is probably on a strike because it is HOT during valley cup. Fine, it wasn’t that hot, but you will all know what I mean when we hit springtime. It’s going to feel like we are all bathing each other’s sweat, and I will probably have to say that the sweat runs green and white as well as every bodily fluid since this is an article for PV.

Anyway, one of the best parts of the whole event is watching the first game that the council comes up with every Valley Cup. They are always so interesting and strange that the council most definitely takes a while to come up with it. If you have a game involving tissue boxes, speed cups, and buckets, you know it wasn’t something that was brought up in two seconds. If a random person walked into the gym at that moment, they would probably think the theme has to do with demented circus games.

After assaulting a tissue box, students had to throw items into buckets and then finish it off by playing a round of a certain cup game that everyone played when they were younger. If I remember correctly, the cups came with a traveling case in case you wanted to play a round of “speed cups” on the go.

After the first game, which the seniors won, the students bore witness to the first of many student-teacher basketball games. The games are always split up the grades by age, as the freshmen and sophomores are on a team and the juniors and seniors are on a separate team. Personally, I use this time to hope that no teacher is going to fall on a freshman, but I also enjoy watching the teachers get aggressive and excited because it is the only time during the school day that they are able to wear freeing basketball shorts (with the exception of the gym teachers, of course).

The rule was that each grade would lose fifty points if the students lost the game. In an unsurprising victory, the teachers won with their lucky basketball shorts on, and each grade lost fifty points from its overall score. Between all of this, each grade had two representatives participate in a half-court shot that would win them points if they hit the board or make it into the hoop, and the whole thing seems absolutely terrifying that I blocked it out of my memory until I started writing this article.

Overall, the seniors are in first place with 287 points, the freshmen are in second place with 221 points, the juniors are in third place with 235 points, and the sophomores are in fourth place with 171 points.

This is only the first out of the few Valley Cups we have throughout the school year, and I am excited to see the many interesting ways students write their charity or their grade on their faces for the next event. As for this one, I am interested to see how the sophomores will shape up, as they are starting off pretty badly (we don’t have to mince our words here), as that is something that is usually reserved for every junior class this school has had.

If these scores are any indication of how the year is going to go, the freshmen and seniors will be going head to head for the valley cup, but it really only the beginning. Don’t worry students- there will be plenty more tissue boxes to assault and balls to throw in buckets before one grade wins the Valley Cup.

(Brandon Alvarado is the staff humorist for The Smoke Signal.)

Rebecca Silverman