The energy at Whitman was electrifying as the Whitman Events Board (WEB) concluded their courtwarming series of events and activities. From Nov. 4 through Nov. 15, WEB coordinated different events and dress up days to gather students together to attempt to win prizes for dressing up and posting online. As part of the WEB initiative, promotional material weaved together a variety of community events and athletic events to build community ahead of the winter athletics season.
“By working with WhitCity on courtwarming, we hope to encourage people who might otherwise only participate in Spirit Week to attend sports games. Having another event centered on athletics encourages a crossover of participants,” Sasha Morgan, WEB chair, said.
Through their programming, WEB hoped to utilize the energy created from previous events to funnel and attract people to the sports events—creating a variety of ways for students to engage and participate in campus life.
“Seeing the WEB emails with the events schedule for the week allows me to engage with the community. It’s how I went to the basketball games this weekend,” first-year Kohki Ueno said.
For Morgan, timing events around the start of the season is critical to creating lasting partnerships between athletics and student organizations.
“We hope to see the momentum we start with marketing around Spirit Week and athletics boost attendance at the start of the season. Finding ways for WEB to work with other on-campus groups gives the opportunity to create connections for future events and share audiences,” Morgan said.
WEB integrated school pride into their Spirit Week themes, spotlighting a Whitman Jersey day to encourage engagement with athletics in an interactive low-pressure way.
The wide range of participants joining all the different WEB events carried on the momentum to support our Whitman sports teams.
“Spirit Week helps get non-athletes thinking about campus athletics right around the start of the winter athletic season,” Morgan said.
For an exciting start to the season, the basketball team made our school proud as they faced off and won all of their games this weekend. The women’s basketball team has an impressive win streak of seven matches so far, showing their prowess and giving Whitman students a reason to be thrilled.
“Witnessing the athletes in action on the courts and being able to support them is what I feel the Whitman community is all about,” Ueno said.
However, Spirit Week is not just about athletics. The WEB schedule spotlighted a variety of programming and featured events such as the Native Language Lecture, which dove into the power of language to show how language shapes identity and culture, or the Matt the Knife Magic Night which provided an entertaining show for all attendees. WEB gave students the opportunity to find new interests, even when they weren’t interested in doing some of the more flashy dress-up themed events.
“Being able to learn something new outside of class is a great opportunity and I’m grateful to have these resources that WEB provides,” first-year Stephanie Berger said.
For Berger, the combination of athletic, educational and entertaining events helped contribute to a positive campus culture.
“Watching basketball games and cheering our basketball team is a really nice way to end the week on a positive note,” Berger said.
Spirit Week raised the morale of the campus to actively show support to the athletes. As Walla Walla starts to feel a bit chilly, courtwarming eased Whitman into a new season to liven things up and spread cheer during the winter season.
