Tennent Kicks Off Black and White Night

They have 45 minutes. The members of the White Pirates’ dance crew and synchronized swimming team have 45 minutes to rehearse their routines on this Wednesday evening before the Black Chaos come in and fine-tune their own sequences.

It’s all part of the last minute blitz to make sure everything is just right for William Tennent’s annual Black and White Night competition. The three-day event kicked off Wednesday morning with the academic portion, featuring game show style contests inspired by Jeopardy, Family Feud, etc. The score right now stands at 86-58 in Black’s favor, but with about 95 more competitions planned, there’s plenty of time for White to catch up.

“This is planned, organized and executed completely by the students, which is nice for the faculty,” said Ed Walker, art teacher and one of two supervisors on site to make sure things run smoothly. “We just get to stand here and watch. It’s a great way to encourage leadership and teamwork.”

Started 46 years ago by phys. ed. teacher Ken Montgomery as just something for students to do for fun, Black and White night has ballooned into an intense contest that takes over the school for about six weeks out of the year. The teams, expected to include more than 500 students this year, are split up alphabetically by last name, with A-K Black, L-Z White. The hard division has no sympathy for personal relationships. If it pits friend against friend, so be it. Or, in Justin Massaro and Kelsey Hiltebeitel’s case, boyfriend versus girlfriend.

“We’re not talking to each other a lot right now,” joked Hiltebeitel. She is co-general of the Black Chaos and has no intention of leaking information to Massaro, co-general of the White Pirates.

As generals, Hiltebeitel and Massaro are in charge of their respective teams. Chosen in early February by a faculty committee after conducting interviews with candidates, the generals had a few short weeks to select captains and co-captains, decide which events to include, drum up student interest in competing, hold tryouts and assign players to events.

“You have to make sure you match people up to the right events,” said Massaro. “I try not to step on too many toes. If someone gets selected for an event they don’t really want, you have to finesse them a bit.”

Besides synchronized swimming, the Pool Night events include Pack a Canoe, where each team has to fit as many people onto a canoe and be the first to row two lengths of the pool, King Fish, where swimmers have to get from one end of the pool to the other before the whistle blows, with the allotted time decreasing after each pass, and a watermelon scramble. Friday’s Gym Night will feature relay races, a free throw contest, a human pyramid contest and a bench press competition.

Of the numerous competitions, it’s the synchronized swimming and dance off that requires the most work. The captains have just weeks to pick the music, choreograph, rehearse and polish the routines, spending at least an hour a day.

“The funny thing is,” said Massaro, “those two events are worth the least amount of points. It requires so much time and energy, but you only get three points each if you win. There’s a couple that are worth 10.”

Tickets for Pool Night are sold out, but there still some available at $3 each for Friday’s Gym Night.