The awards for Emerson Junior Senior High School’s athletes have been changed into three separate events instead of one large dinner for the 2024-2025 school year.
Typically, the Varsity Award Dinner is held in June at the end of each school year. All student athletes, along with their coaches, attend, with an optional choice for their parents to go. It is held at a venue where dinner and desserts are served, and each coach takes their turn standing at the front with their team as they present their speech and awards. However, this school year, there are now three separate ceremonies that take place for each season of sports.
The first ceremony for the fall season took place on November 21st, and was held in the auditorium. Each team sat together, and room was provided for parents as well. One by one, the teams went up on stage. There, coaches reflected on their great seasons and presented awards.
The Fall Awards cover soccer, cheer, football, girls tennis, volleyball, cross country, and gymnastics. Another ceremony in the winter includes wrestling, basketball, track, competition cheer, bowling, and hockey. Then the spring event recognizes track, baseball, softball, lacrosse, boys tennis, and golf.
It is so important to Emerson High School that all athletes are recognized, which relates to yet another change to the ceremony. Not only are varsity athletes invited to celebrate, but now also junior varsity and middle school teams are all invited.
Mrs. Vohra, who has the responsibility of organizing the awards stated, “I love that everyone is included because they should be, everyone works very hard.”
Mrs. Vohra, who is the Athletic Departments Secretary, plays such an important role in making sure all athletes are recognized and that everything goes accordingly. When asked about the change to the separate events instead of a large dinner, Mrs. Vohra said, “It’s definitely easier, I feel more organized.”
Mr. Compagnone, who is the boys head soccer coach, explains how special the award night is to him:
“The athletic awards night is incredibly important and meaningful to me as a coach because it is a chance to acknowledge and celebrate all of Emerson’s athletes. We have a lot of students taking part in athletics here and sometimes their sports achievements don’t get the recognition they deserve because those events are after school. Getting a chance to award kids that have tremendous stats in their sports, but also the hard workers and team players we have is something special. For me personally, it meant a lot to get to recognize my team’s accomplishments on and off the field in a season that was so successful. I also think the new format of having one every season worked much better, because it gave JV and middle school teams some recognition and with having a shorter program there was definitely more attention paid to the speeches and teams.”
Mr. Compagnone also added on about the process of the ceremony saying, “The nice thing about preparing my speeches now is that I have found a pretty good template to follow since I have been doing this for a few years now. You always want to focus on the positives and showcase as many accomplishments as possible for the players. I am the one who is honored by the chance to speak about our season, but at the end of the day it is the players who make these seasons happen. So getting the chance to give a speech about the student athletes is something I really do cherish every year.”
The awards ceremony that took place at the High School last Thursday made for a very successful night. Refreshments were provided after by the helpful PFA (Parents for Athletes) team, which included treats and drinks for all to enjoy in the cafeteria. The Emerson Junior Senior High School is definitely looking forward to both the winter and spring awards that are next to come!
