By Hall Directors Tim Cleaver and Julia Kimmel
Holy Cross College’s Holy Hall Tournament and Spirit Week were another great success this year! Our residence halls competed against one another for glory, pride, and the coveted Spes Uni-CUP Trophy. We congratulate the Pulte Hall Pilots for winning the tournament this year!
The Holy Hall Tournament began out of a desire to foster greater community in the Spring of 2021 during the pandemic and to have special and fun activities for our students to participate in. Two major goals of the tournament were to foster Holy Cross College spirit, and spirit and pride for one’s dorm all in a fun and competitive way. We, as the Hall Directors of Holy Cross, recognized the importance of a strong residence hall community at other colleges and wanted to replicate that here at Holy Cross in our own unique way. We saw the strong community that competition helps to foster and how a unique hall identity helps a community become stronger. Even hall rivalries foster a stronger bond within a dorm! Along with developing this tournament, we encouraged our Resident Assistants last year to redesign their hall crests, develop hall mottos, choose hall colors, and choose patron Saints. We also ordered cool new hall swag like t-shirts, sweatshirts, and beanies for residents to showcase their halls. All of this helped increase our students’ pride in the dorm they call home!
This year, we expanded the Holy Hall competition to last longer than just a week and created events to align with the mission and initiatives of the College. We advertised game watches to support our student-athletes at basketball and soccer games, and students gained hall spirit points for attending these games. We helped promote school spirit by having HoCro Spirit Sessions to learn the Fight Song and Alma Mater. We also had hall spirit days where students wore their hall swag or colors to get hall spirit points and supported residence halls through attendance at hall signature events. These events were held throughout the Fall 2021 semester as part of the Holy Hall Tournament.
Spirit Week was a culmination of our Holy Hall Tournament and it happened from January 19 to 26, 2022. It included game watches for our men’s and women’s basketball teams, Basil’s Bake Off, another Hall Spirit Day, a Talent Show, dorm blessing, and several opportunities for food and fellowship in the common spaces of our campus.
The Thursday of Spirit Week coincided with Blessed Basil Moreau Day, an annual celebration here at Holy Cross. It was a day full of fun, faith, and fellowship. The day began with a special midday Mass celebrated by Rev. David T. Tyson, C.S.C., College president in celebration of Blessed Basil Moreau. In the evening, our Student Government Association (SGA) sponsored a SpesUni-vent at Howard Park where our students were able to ice skate. It was great fun to see some of our students from Texas, Florida, and Central America attempt to ice skate for the very first time! We had 117 students attend this event which is one of the biggest turnouts we’ve had for an event like this! The evening concluded with a Trivia Night hosted by three first-year students. It was an opportunity for the 60 students in attendance to showcase their HC knowledge past and present! It was a wonderful day to celebrate the founder of the Congregation of Holy Cross, Blessed Basil Moreau, and grow in fellowship with one another as a united Holy Cross College family!
The week culminated on Wednesday evening with a campus-wide competition of Capture the Crest to determine who would win the whole tournament! It was a COLD evening with subzero windchills, but the fun and excitement of the competition kept the students warm for this quick contest. Students then enjoyed some fellowship, hot cocoa, and cookies in Ave Brew. Our Dean of Students, Andrew Polaniecki, then conferred the honor of Holy Hall Tournament Champion complete with sword and rousing speech onto the men of Pulte Hall. Fr. Tyson, an honorary resident of Pulte Hall, was also in attendance to celebrate with his fellow Pilots!
We had a lot of fun planning the tournament with students and seeing them compete throughout! We look forward to capitalizing on the great momentum of Spirit Week and further advancing the ideals of what it means to be a Holy Cross Saint!
Ave Crux, Spes Unica!