By Isabel
Coffey (2016)
A game is not merely a frivolity. A game is a test of honor, endurance, and
sportsmanship—a game tests both the mind and the soul. Furthermore, through
games, men are given the chance to know each other more fully, and to create
hefty ties between themselves that serve as supports long after the games are
over. Such is the nature of Veritas’ Homecoming Festival.
--
The day was temperate, and the tension high as each team of students recklessly
sought the destruction, whether figurative or literal, of its opponent. There
was every potential for student to turn against student. This could have been a
breeding-ground for hostility. Yet in the true spirit of honorable competition,
time and time again, we rose above animal instinct and acted on the sophistication
we practice each day. Countless examples of compassion were shown. The older students
were beneficent toward the younger. And the younger students rose to the
example set for them.
With each exemplary act of a Veritas veteran, a newer
soul was stirred to action. We “biguns” showed the “littluns”* how to be a
Veritasian. In the course of the former leading and the latter following, a
path was forged toward good. Every day we continue to walk that path and forge
ahead, and each day the end becomes more clear.
What is virtue if it is not
shared? The Homecoming Festival gave the virtuous among us a chance to guide
many others to virtue. Our hallways are not the same since the Festival. We
have been brought closer together through the spirit of sportsmanship we felt
there. What was before a more discordant bundle of factions is now closer to a
united battle line, marching for victory in the quest to discover the Good, the
Beautiful and the True. We are more prepared than ever before to take on the mental
challenges which befall us (not quite by accident) each day in the classroom.
So
games must not be played merely to prove who is superior. Games must be, and
have been, played for the fortification of our community. We have been enlisted
to embark on a marvelous quest, and now, now we can depart at last with faith
in victory.
* the
terms “littluns” and “biguns” pay homage to The Lord of the Flies, by William
Golding, which we read in the eighth grade.
