After a long year of tests, homework, and lectures, the most anticipated week of the year has arrived. For many students, it is the most anticipated week of any spirit week at AGHS. A time to compete against the other grades to determine which class will reign supreme: Greek Week. Will the experienced seniors take home the glory? Or the new freshmen who are experiencing Greek Week for the first time? There is no knowing which way it could lead.
However, this is not what all students think.
Over the past few years, the underclassmen have noticed a pattern. The Senior Class tends to win each year, which leads to some underclassmen believing that seniors are predetermined to win.
“I think it’s to make the seniors excited to enjoy their last moments in high school, but I feel like it’s mainly [for seniors to win],” Ella Payne (‘25) said.
The class of 2024 has lost Greek Week the last couple of years, which makes other grades consider what this year will be like. Due to this conspiracy, the Class of 2024 has their theories about how Greek Week will end.
“It goes one of two ways. Either [the Class of 2024] loses again, and it’s incredibly hilarious, or we win because it’s rigged for the seniors to win every year. I don’t know if it is, but it is a possibility,” Ephraim Nau (‘24) said.
What students don’t know is that Greek Week points are meticulously kept track of by Shannon Hurtado. There are a multitude of different spreadsheets keeping track of points and participants for each event. Every rule for events and their leaders is public information for students to know. Students are allowed to study the rules themselves and make sure that everything is fair.
“There’s flyers around campus right now. It tells you exactly everything,” Hurtado said. “It’s kind of a one-stop shop. So that people don’t say they made up those points. It’s there.”
So far, freshmen have done unexpectedly well in Greek Week. There has been chatter of why this could be and it has a simple answer. It is due to the freshmen not having much of their Greek Week color. Whereas upperclassmen have had a year or three to gather their Greek Week colors.
“That’s because they don’t have a lot of T-shirts. So they’re buying them like crazy,” Hurtado said. “Juniors and seniors already have a lot of [their colors]. So they don’t feel like they need it.”
Along with that, judges for spirit and events are kept completely secret. Which doesn’t give much room for students or even staff to be able to manipulate the points.
“You never know. Every single day it’s a different five or six teachers. It’s not like they have a little pad and a little clipboard. It’s very locked down,” Hurtado said.
Even Class Officers don’t have much say in what goes on during Greek Week. Being the voice for their grade doesn’t mean they get special privileges on what goes on during the week. They are there to recruit and explain what to do. They don’t know the ins and outs of everything about Greek Week, rather they know as much as any other student.
“We don’t know the details like we don’t know what food is gonna be eaten, or what the endurance event is gonna be or any of those details,” Class Officer Evan Nichols (‘24) said. “What we do get to know about is planning for the events and the schedule.”
Many students have also heard of previous classes that have won Greek Week, once in 2013 and the most recent being in 2019 when Aphrodite won in their junior year. Which makes it possible for other classes to win Greek Week on motivation and excitement alone.
Yet, because it is the class of 2024’s last year at AGHS, it would seem that they have more motivation to win it all.
“I think that a lot of people are very into it and competitive,” Ashlynn Chavez (‘24) said. “I would say that a lot of people are the same people that go into the same things. There might be a little bit of stigma of who’s always in the front, who’s going to be cheering the loudest. I think spirit-wise, we’re not lacking in that.”
Seniors coming out on top frequently has nothing to do with staff manipulation or cheating on either side. It has to do with the amount of spirit each class has for the excitement of Greek Week. Yet, there is always the possibility that another class could come out on top. It is only a matter of time until we find out.
