Hastings’ Last Hurrah

Every day after lunch, Gilman Upper School students spend half an hour engaging with their peers and teachers. Whether it be in a light-hearted advisory meeting, listening to a distinguished speaker in assembly, or in an immersive, community time is a formative and enriching experience for all. As of last year, some community time slots got a new look with the introduction of the Advisory Olympics.

In the fall of 2025, Ms. Bessie Oster founded the Advisory Olympics, a competition in which advisories would compete against each other throughout the year for bragging rights, a 3D-printed trophy, and a Chick-fil-A lunch. Along with being a joyous activity, the Olympics are thoughtfully designed to enhance and reinforce the Advising Program. Ms. Oster explained, “The Olympic events are intended to add an element of sublime whimsy, highlighting and celebrating some of the more esoteric artistic, athletic, and academic skills among our students.” In addition, while the games often require only a couple of participants from each advisory, she ensures that the program engages all attendees and encourages collaboration within groups. Often, this is done by offering an audience activity adjacent to the main one that still awards points. 

Originally, the events garnered mixed interest from advisory groups, but thanks to the flexible late entries policy, an astounding 48 of 53 were involved by the final competition. Students thoroughly enjoyed the competition, as reflected by the 91% participation rate across advisories. “Advisory Olympics was a refreshing change to our usual assembly routine and brought some fun and camaraderie to the school day,” commented Kiran Milak ‘28.

A total of six events were spread across the school year: musical chairs, which was accompanied by name-that-tune for the audience; can-struction, which used cans that would be donated to the Donald Bentley Food Pantry; drawing your advisor with a simultaneous game of pictionary for the crowd; Gilman trivia; a frisbee distance-throwing competition paired with Bingo to get to know schoolmates; and Family Feud. After strong performances across all six events, Mr. Matt Zealand’s advisory defeated Mr. Ned Emala’s ‘13 second-place advisory, earning the coveted prizes at the end of the year.

Last year’s Olympics were full of fond memories, but one particularly stood out to Ms. Oster: the inaugural event, musical chairs. She elaborated, “Our kick off event last fall was pretty epic. It was a beautiful day to be at Sotir Stadium with eight simultaneous games of musical chairs that led to a championship round with a spectator aspect.” Much of what made the day so special was likely its spontaneous, interactive final round. After countless songs and eliminations, only two competitors, Sawyer Peck ‘27 and Colton Danielczyk ‘26, remained. The tense final round resulted in a broken chair, and, per the judges’ decision, the victor would be decided by a fiercely contested dance-off with quite a unique scoring system: the volume of the crowd’s cheers. Though both received boisterous applause from a passionate student section, Colton reigned superior.

The 2026-2027 edition of the Advisory Olympics will look very similar to this past year’s games, with a few key changes. In preparing for this year, Ms. Oster is placing heavy emphasis on “student collaboration,” as she hopes to consult students in planning and developing the events; emceeing, which was implemented for the final event, Family Feud, hosted by Jay Salovaara ‘26; and, in her words, “hype.”    

“This year, we will have a whole new lineup of Olympic events, with similar efforts to highlight different types of athletic, artistic, and academic skills,” explained Ms. Oster. The upcoming campaign will feature five instead of six traditional, community-time events, but, unlike last year, there will also be plenty of other point-scoring opportunities. Ms. Oster shared with The News that this year will see a handful of recycled events, like Gilman Trivia, alongside brand-new events – only one of which has been confirmed: Geography Bee. Outside of the five events, several “pop-up” activities will be offered; some examples include “a donut eating lunch time event” or a cipher to be printed in The News.

The Olympics will hopefully remain a highlight of Gilman’s student life for years to come and eventually become a tradition. Be sure to read The News throughout the year for a cipher, and best of luck in the games!