The fall of 2022 was when Link Crew at Benilde-St. Margaret’s introduced the idea of having “The Freshman Cup.” Essentially, every Tuesday in the fall, all the freshman homerooms gather in the Great Hall to compete in various games. These games are held to help strengthen interactions among freshmen and bond them as a class with friendly competition.

At the beginning of each year, before the homerooms participate in the games, the group comes up with a team name that reflects the theme of the cup. “This year, the kids get to choose a mythical creature and a pasta noodle and combine the two together to make a name for their homeroom,” junior Link Crew leader Amelia Salmon said.

The purpose of the Freshman Cup is to help unify and bring together individual freshman homerooms, as well as letting them compete against their classmates. “I think it can help build a sense of team and community, especially when you’re staying with the same group of people in homeroom for ninth grade, tenth grade, eleventh and twelfth grade. It’s fun to see a start of that with some team building,” Link Crew advisor Max Johnson said.

When the Freshman Cup first began three years ago, Link Crew coordinators presented this idea based on previous ninth graders’ experiences as they entered high school. “We received a lot of feedback for several years that students enjoy having friendly competition, so we decided to formalize and have a little bit more opportunities for friendly competition within freshman homerooms,” Johnson said.

The first Freshman Cup of this school year took place on Tuesday, September 24th. Link Crew started off the cup with two games that they knew the freshman would love. “We did two different competitions and had two kids from each homeroom participate; the first one was eating a fruit roll up as fast as they could without using their hands, and the other one had to put an Oreo on their forehead and move it down to their mouth, without using their hands,” Salmon said.

As the year goes on with the Freshman Cup, it sometimes gets hard to motivate and get freshmen excited about playing in games after multiple weeks of the competition. “We have a big group of crew leaders, and we are all super energetic and excited about it so that it reflects on them and it gets them more motivated to participate in the activities,” Salmon said.