Various Staff September 26, 2011 Activities

The Roosevelt gym shook with the roars of each class at the kick off Fall Sports Rally on Thursday, September 25. The teams sat at the end of the gym, waiting to be introduced. Each class massed on the bleachers under their brightly colored class banners.

The official business of the rally, kicking off Roosevelt’s football season and honoring other teams playing fall sports, was punctuated by games, cheers, and spell-outs. On the microphones were Mr. Nestor Cerda, Roosevelt’s Campus Culture Director, assisted by Mrs. Rochelle Flores, and senior Kimberly Marquez, Commissioner of Rallies.

The first game, sent Seniors, Juniors, Sophomores, and Freshmen slaloming through cones against each other on tricycles and scooters, for class points. In the second game, a scooter and potato-sack relay race, was just as much fun. Both games brought out cheers from the crowd as they encouraged their classmates. In the second relay, a team member threw him or herself down on the wheeled contraption, and were pushed, flung and dragged by other team members the length of the gym. When the whole team had completed the scooter portion, then they all had to stand in giant grocery-type bags and jump the whole way down the gym to the finish line. The Sophomore class won the first, and the Senior class won the second game.

Mr. Cerda called out the teams, and introduced the seniors by name on each team—girls’ softball and volleyball, tennis, track, waterpolo, and, of course, football took the floor of the gym to cheers from the RoughRiders in the stands.

In the middle of the rally, a “discipline” situation occurred, and Mr. Cerda, Mr. Bryan Wells, Roosevelt’s principal, and Mr. Charlie Roberts, head of Campus Security, pulled student Richard Songsamayvong out of the senior section. It was a set-up. The surprise was that Richard led Mr. Wells and the other staff in a flashmob dance routine that ended up involving all the leadership and cheer students, as well as the whole administration.

This was a rousing start to the 2011-2012 year of sports and activities at Roosevelt High School.