Benilde-St. Margaret’s values sportsmanship and prides itself on school spirit. However, that was not the case during the high-intensity playoff games against the Academy of Holy Angels recently. Due to the poor student behavior, the BSM administration believed it was best to address the issue with the whole student body while still honoring BSM sports success.
Although BSM has a high school spirit, staff decided it had gone too far since students stopped listening to their teachers and staff. “I think we’ve had this incredible success and with excessive success comes the opportunity for us to be in big venues or other venues… And again, lots of enthusiasm, great atmosphere, really positive for the team, which was great. But then at the end, even though Mr. Kautzman and I went all the way down the line four or five times saying you can’t rush the field,” Rick Johns, Athletic Director at BSM, said.
The assembly celebrated BSM’s success while also addressing the problems at hand, showing where BSM excels and where it still needs to grow. “[The assembly was] just to number one, celebrate our victories, but also just to make sure that we are all on the same page about being the winners that we are and showing positivity wherever we go… we just wanted to bring to everyone’s attention that we can’t be doing anything that’s unsportsmanlike. We don’t want to because it’s not who BSM is, but also we can’t because of the high school league,” Nitchals said.
From the eyes of the students, many think the assembly could have been handled a bit differently. “I thought we could have done it over email instead of full school presence…I think for what was accomplished and the whole energy of the whole week, I think it should have been more of a two-school thing with Holy Angels,” senior Nirvaan Yogarajah said.
On the other hand, the student body realizes that they did do something wrong and do not want to impair the BSM name. BSM wants to keep its school pride and sportsmanship at a high level so this does not happen again. “BSM did get a call from the Minnesota High School Association, so it is a pretty serious issue and won’t happen again,” senior Eddie Wolfe said.