Fight Night turns out rough when students fight with words instead of fists
Aonghus Doherty '29
Fight Night turns out rough when students fight with words instead of fists
Aonghus Doherty '29
When one thinks Fight Night, they think of fists, right?
Well, that person would be surprised what Mount Carmel students are doing. In a new movement to help build on brain power in such a crucial time due to laziness and artificial intelligence, they fight with words.
High schoolers have so much pent up energy and they have found out the best way to spend it is through testing their extensive vocabulary, and not just any words but special ones, ones with meaning, and ones that require thoughtful creation.
MC students now look at preparing for this new tradition in a different way, by writing notecards and warming up their brains. Fighting with words sounds weird, right? Well everyone's in the same boat as the MC students with their confusion when they heard that fight night was changed. MC president Mr. Conroy said that the new fight would be a test of intelligence to help account for those so called “noodle arms” or those who attest to their intellectual strength rather than physical strength. At this point in MC tradition alums have agreed that the school needs a change to call to different personalities which is one of the reasons this new tradition is being created.
The fight works like this: two people on either side of the ring pick a topic to argue about, then they demonstrate their understanding of the topic. Students are scored based on their knowledge and ability to speak with efficient inflection. Judges would be chosen from the extensive list of English teachers. The students made sure there was no bias for judging toward certain students before choosing.
“This was definitely new,” said freshman Edward Briscoe. “I’ve never heard of something like this. It’s interesting the way they created this. Makes it sound kind of like a debate.”
MC has had the ceremony of fight night for decades, and while it still pulls in large crowds, the MC community wants different crowds now. In a world where intelligent people are few, students bring the board to the table to make a change. They don’t want to be left out of fight night just because they're not good fighters and want to press people to be smart or rather to be curious.
Many people believe that this is weird and it doesn’t make sense and that the school should just just keep it as a boxing-centered fight night. Most students want something different, something for the so-called “noodle arms.” They believe intelligence can lift more than any physical feat. Students created a new Instagram page for this tradition in the hopes it would represent it fully next to those 1,000 other MC social media pages. In the end MC decided that this might actually be a good idea and that it would help pull a different crowd. This decision was met with cheers of joy.
“For the noodle arms,” the students cried out in the halls of Carmel. “Do it for them.”