Greenhill will celebrate student athletes on May 18 with its first-ever Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly event, modeled after the ESPY Awards held by sports broadcaster ESPN.
“It’s an opportunity for us to celebrate all of our athletes, whether it be team or individual accomplishments,” said Head of Athletics and Physical Education Jarrett Shine.
The celebration will take place in Rose Hall in the Marshall Family Performing Arts Center and will be open to all students.
“I’m pretty sure most of the students on our campus are athletes in some form or fashion,” said Head Football Coach KJ Williams. “We would love for an entire student body to be there to support.”
Organizing the Event
The Greenhill Athletics Department has been planning an event like this for three years. This year, the department’s plan finally came to fruition.
“The help of the people in this office really motivated me to continue with the process and not get discouraged by it,” Shine said.
There were several factors in consideration while planning the event.
“[We are] looking at the overall safety of everything, logistics of everything and then the overall fan experience,” Williams said.
Due to the competitive nature of the awards, the department wanted to ensure the event is inclusive and engaging for all students.
“Making sure that this is an equitable event for everybody is probably one of the most challenging things,” Williams said. “At the end of the day, we want this to be something that the students at Greenhill look forward to every year.”
The Athletics Department created various categories of awards. Featured awards will include Best Championship Performance, Best Moment and Outstanding Team.
“There’s a lot of different opportunities for people to be represented as well as the teams just being able to go up there themselves,” Williams said.
The department also decided on a process to determine the winners. For each award, athletes and coaches will nominate players, and then the student body will vote on the nominees.
“We are going to open it up, just like we do for Athlete of the Week, for everyone to vote for these individual awards,” Shine said.
Preparation
Williams says preparation for the event began at the end of the football season in November.
There will be a red carpet entrance and signs, to make it as similar as possible to ESPN’s ESPYS awards.
“It’s going to be an opportunity for you to dress up,” Shine said. “There are going to be paparazzi people taking pictures.”
Another consideration that went into preparations was encouraging students to participate and attend the event. The Upper School Athletics Board aided the Athletics Department throughout this process.
“The Athletics Board has really put our input in and helped come up with ideas to communicate what’s happening to the student body and come up with creative ideas for the night,” senior board member Sophie Schwartz said.
Greenhill Athletics also collaborated with several students to create videos showcasing athletes.
Shine says that Athletic Department Coordinator Izayah Donnelly has been instrumental throughout the preparation process.
“He’s doing a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of researching and figuring out how to get the red carpet to look right,” Shine said.
Donnelly says he hopes the Greenhill ESPYS will also boost the motivation of athletes.
“I think once people see what it is and see the trophies and things like that, it may motivate them to say, ‘Oh, I want an award like that’,” Donnelly said. “That’s the goal.”
