Upcoming spirit games are all about community

Ask a simple question and get a complex answer.

What is the ultimate goal of prep sports?

There is a camp that holds winning, winning games, titles, glory, as the be all and end all. No, some say, it’s competition, the chance to learn how to compete in a competitive world. You’re all wrong, others cry, it’s all about fun, the opportunity to play, sweat, laugh, run, to be with your friends.

No matter with what group your allegiances lie, there is one aspect of prep sports you can’t deny.

Prep sports build community.

Once a Spartan, always a Spartan. A Stag through and through. Falcon pride for life. A Bulldog’s bite lasts forever.

For better or worse.

This afternoon, the first of a myriad of Spokane-area high school spirit games kicks off in the Spokane Arena: The Rubber Chicken – Lewis and Clark vs. Ferris. The oldest of these more-than-just-a-basketball-game encounters. The Granddaddy of them all.

The big city’s chance to build what the small town has naturally.

Community. With the high school as a the focal point.

Carole Meyer is in her first year as principal at Rogers High, but she has the spirit. She caught it during her years at LC and Ferris and next month she’ll take part in the newest of the spirit games, pitting her Pirates with Cheney in the Diamond Dipper.

“It’s like homecoming in a way,” Meyers says of the spirit contests, “it’s the same sort of concept.

“Any time an activity can bring a school together, any time the full school community can rally around a concept and an idea, I’m all for it. It builds community and tradition that goes well beyond the walls of the high school.”

Lewis and Clark principal Jon Swett echoes the sentiment.

“Yes, it does foster a sense of community and it’s fun,” Swett says. “It’s also an opportunity for the kids to focus on the community service aspect of this. We do community service work all year, but this is a chance to raise money and awareness.”

What else but the Rubber Chicken would motivate an 18-year-old boy (someone who says its too cold to take out the trash in June) to stand outside in 20-degree weather with his shirt off, soliciting cars passing by at Regal and 37th for donations? Of course, the answer to that somewhat-rhetorical question is the Stinky Sneaker, the Groovy Shoes, the Golden Throne … they all can.

The kids buy in.

And they get something big in return.

“It pays dividends in other ways too,” Shadle Park principal Herb Rotchford says. “It provides a venue for a lot kids who wouldn’t usually get involved in activities to be involved.”

“This is what they remember,” Meyer says. “Of course, academics are the priority, the day-to-day accumulation of skills they will use the rest of their lives. But it’s these events that they remember.”

Swett sees it too.

“We get to celebrate who we are,” he says. “It’s a celebration of the Tiger community.

“We’re careful to make sure we limit the disruption to our primary goal, academics, but the kids get excited. And that’s good.”

Excitement. Now that’s as good a reason as any for prep sports.

By the way, the blue skin was worth it. My son and his friends raised somewhere in the neighborhood of $500 for cancer care that cold December day. Now if I can only get him to empty the waste basket …