Every sport has a specific “senior night” to celebrate the time and accomplishments of the seniors on the team during their last home game or meet of the season. And each year, no matter the sport, senior night is always an emotional rollercoaster for everyone on the team. Everyone dresses up, gifts are given, and tears are shed as all the underclassmen players get ready to say goodbye to the graduating seniors.
The Countdown to Senior Night
As a junior, I knew that coming into this year of badminton was going to be a different from all the previous year I had been on the team. Though I’m only a JV, joining and being on the team for the last two years had let me connect with so many different people from the current sophomore class of 2020, to the 2016 seniors that graduated almost three years ago. Each senior night I experienced, I saw the amount of dedication and time that the underclassmen made to make the night perfect. This year, I knew that badminton senior night was going to be one of the most memorable times I’ll experience at Creek because for once, I actually knew most of the graduating seniors after meeting and getting to know them ever since my freshman year.
Preparation for badminton senior night started with the coaches and underclassmen coming together around the time of spring break - weeks before the season actually ended - to start planning for the big day. Together, we created a plan for the gifts, the posters, and the goodbyes to each of the 16 seniors on the team. Over the four weeks leading up to Silver Creek Badminton’s senior night against the Andrew Hill Falcons, the freshmen, sophomores, and juniors on the team worked long, hard hours to get all the gifts and posters together and done before the last home game of the season.
“The days leading up to senior night were stressful as we still had so much to do. However, spending time with everyone while working on senior night was just another fun team bonding moment for us,” said Adora Vu ‘21.
This year, the underclassmen players went all out with senior night, making food, buying balloons, and just planning on making senior night one of the best games for all the seniors. In the days leading up to senior night on Thursday, April 26, many of the underclassmen worked starting from the moment practice ended to three to five hours afterward.
“Admittedly, it was pretty difficult to try to balance all my classes along while helping out with senior night, but it all worked out in the end,” said Timmy Nguyen ‘19. Many of the underclassmen players, myself included, used our personal time that could have been used doing homework or studying for tests and instead spent hours efforts drawing, painting, and putting together gifts for the seniors to remember their time on the team by. Going into senior night, we could only hope that senior night would come out as amazing and special as we wanted it to be.
Preparation for badminton senior night started with the coaches and underclassmen coming together around the time of spring break - weeks before the season actually ended - to start planning for the big day. Together, we created a plan for the gifts, the posters, and the goodbyes to each of the 16 seniors on the team. Over the four weeks leading up to Silver Creek Badminton’s senior night against the Andrew Hill Falcons, the freshmen, sophomores, and juniors on the team worked long, hard hours to get all the gifts and posters together and done before the last home game of the season.
“The days leading up to senior night were stressful as we still had so much to do. However, spending time with everyone while working on senior night was just another fun team bonding moment for us,” said Adora Vu ‘21.
This year, the underclassmen players went all out with senior night, making food, buying balloons, and just planning on making senior night one of the best games for all the seniors. In the days leading up to senior night on Thursday, April 26, many of the underclassmen worked starting from the moment practice ended to three to five hours afterward.
“Admittedly, it was pretty difficult to try to balance all my classes along while helping out with senior night, but it all worked out in the end,” said Timmy Nguyen ‘19. Many of the underclassmen players, myself included, used our personal time that could have been used doing homework or studying for tests and instead spent hours efforts drawing, painting, and putting together gifts for the seniors to remember their time on the team by. Going into senior night, we could only hope that senior night would come out as amazing and special as we wanted it to be.
Senior Night
After four years of being on the team and participating in all the senior nights, the anticipation for my own senior night was really high. Hearing all the praises from the underclassmen about how good the posters looked and how nice the senior gifts made me really excited for our last game to finally come.
The actual day of senior night felt like any other. It didn’t really sink in that it was going to be my last game playing for Silver Creek until 7th period ended and I slowly walked over to the gym. When I finally made it to the gym, there were freshmen guarding each of the doors to make sure none of the seniors came in. It was in this half hour before the last game that I felt the appreciation for my teammates more than ever before. Hearing the laughter from the gym and seeing how excited everyone was made me miss everyone before I even went in.
All the senior nights in the past basically went the same way, the seniors were kept out of the gym until everything was ready and everyone else would line up on either sides of the door to create a pathway into the middle of the gym, and so I knew what to expect coming in. What I didn’t expect was the overwhelming feeling of admiration that filled the gym. Before, I watched the Varsity members walk between the cheering members to their posters, but now I was walking down that same aisle. It was an amazing experience to visually see how the team the supported me through the posters but also to feel it on our home court.
After our final game, the celebration began. As we debriefed on the game, the coaches revealed what the JV players made and bought for the seniors, on top of their amazing work for the posters and gifts. Some members pitched in to buy two cakes, and another one baked cookies, brownies, and made personalized gifts. In other years, it would have stopped with one gift but this year, all the seniors were surprised with so much more.
While I wasn’t a senior for all the other senior nights that I’ve attended - so I can’t really say how amazing it was - but I thought this year was the best one out of all that I’ve participated in. The entire team went above and beyond to make badminton’s senior night special, and I’m so thankful that I was able to be a part of the badminton family.
The actual day of senior night felt like any other. It didn’t really sink in that it was going to be my last game playing for Silver Creek until 7th period ended and I slowly walked over to the gym. When I finally made it to the gym, there were freshmen guarding each of the doors to make sure none of the seniors came in. It was in this half hour before the last game that I felt the appreciation for my teammates more than ever before. Hearing the laughter from the gym and seeing how excited everyone was made me miss everyone before I even went in.
All the senior nights in the past basically went the same way, the seniors were kept out of the gym until everything was ready and everyone else would line up on either sides of the door to create a pathway into the middle of the gym, and so I knew what to expect coming in. What I didn’t expect was the overwhelming feeling of admiration that filled the gym. Before, I watched the Varsity members walk between the cheering members to their posters, but now I was walking down that same aisle. It was an amazing experience to visually see how the team the supported me through the posters but also to feel it on our home court.
After our final game, the celebration began. As we debriefed on the game, the coaches revealed what the JV players made and bought for the seniors, on top of their amazing work for the posters and gifts. Some members pitched in to buy two cakes, and another one baked cookies, brownies, and made personalized gifts. In other years, it would have stopped with one gift but this year, all the seniors were surprised with so much more.
While I wasn’t a senior for all the other senior nights that I’ve attended - so I can’t really say how amazing it was - but I thought this year was the best one out of all that I’ve participated in. The entire team went above and beyond to make badminton’s senior night special, and I’m so thankful that I was able to be a part of the badminton family.