MC set to add spikeball to athletics after killer performace from  Mr. O'Connor

On the night of September 7th, Mount Carmel held the annual Freshman Late Night for the Class of 2028. This year's Late Night was expected to look exactly like last year's, with boring games and students zoning out during talks from faculty and upperclassmen. However, someone stepped into the mix this year to change things. 

Mr. John O'Connor, psychology teacher and football coach, has recently joined the Counseling Office at MC. His first goal was to make Freshman Late Night fun, so he made the peer leaders bring all the games. One particular request from Mr. O'Connor was spikeball. 

"I was thinking to myself one day and said what would these freshmen like to do on Freshman Late Night?" said Mr. O'Connor. "I thought, hey, I'm good at spikeball, so we can do that."

During Late Night students were actually excited to have some fun since they saw all the games set up for them like Jenga, pickleball, and beanbags. Then, out of the blue, they saw Mr. O'Connor come out with a Nike headband, and he was ready to play. 

"I didn't expect to see Mr. O'Connor show up to play," said freshman Joshua Ngchee. "I was hoping he would let us play on our own because he kind of scares me with his yelling." 

In Mr. O'Connor's first match, he played against seniors Christos Dimas and Matthew Malloy. "I've never seen so much energy out of my cousin," said Malloy. "He was diving everywhere!"

After the match Mr. O'Connor came out with a win. "These guys are not ready for the new spikeball team I'm going to create," he said. "I need people that will get us more recognition and talent than the football team." 

In recent years, Mount Carmel has made a lot of money from the football program and the number of people watching the games. Mr. O'Connor hopes spikeball can generate more money for the school and can give the kids something new to play. 

"I just want to give the kids something to do," said Mr. O'Connor. "I don't want any of these kids to go home at 2:40, and if teaching them all my skills so that they can be better than me, then so be it. Even though they probably can’t be better than me." 

With the addition of the new spikeball team, Mr. O'Connor hopes to get recruits, but the problem is that spikeball would take place in the spring. "I'm gonna have to make sure I don't lose recruits for my tennis program," said tennis coach Mr. Mark Antonetti. "I will have to bribe the kids with something because who wouldn't want to play spikeball?"

Some students, however, have said Mr. O'Connor is not as good as he says he is. 

"He wasn't even winning his matches," said senior Zander Gorman. "He plays by prison rules. I would beat him any day of the week if he didn’t cheat." 

Even though Mr. O'Connor has received some negative attention from spike ball because some students do not believe in his talents, he hopes it will benefit the whole MC community. 

"I hope the spikeball program will receive the same recognition as the football team because they'll win more state championships," he said. "If we have guys like me playing, we will win it all."