In 1971, grey team leader Michael Junsch stood up on the chapel stage and tied the grey ribbon to the Poly flag, signifying his team’s victory in that year’s Poly Cup. Fifty years later, the competition is revived as the Spirit Cup, entailing a new and fun school wide event each month.

After an incredibly challenging year and a half, the Spirit Cup aims to bring students and faculty alike the sense of fun and unity that they certainly need. Throughout the school year, students, divided into two teams of blue and grey, will take part in events ranging from field days to a spelling bee to a scavenger hunt.

In September there will be field days, in October a spelling bee and Halloween costume contest, in November a talent show, and in December a winter clothing drive. The Spirit Cup will continue with a faculty-student games day in January, a geography bee in February, a scavenger hunt in March, and another Field Day in April. 

Jared Winston, Poly’s new interim director of student life, was the primary orchestrator of the program. Since entering the Poly community in 2019, Winston had heard stories from faculty and alumni of past blue-versus-grey traditions. Upon taking up his new role, he started to formulate ideas for what would become the Spirit Cup.

Winston noted that the Middle School’s Field Day in the spring of 2021 inspired him to think up the Spirit Cup. “There was something so hopeful about seeing all the Middle Schoolers on the back fields last year engaging in friendly competition in the name of Poly Prep,” he said.

Winston hopes to culminate the events in an assembly on either the Oval or the back fields where the point totals from each event will be read aloud, and the ultimate victor will be declared. But more importantly, Winston wants to create events that will “revitalize traditions that could bring the community together in good spirit and help remind us of what makes Poly, Poly, [and] help remind us what brings us together and what makes this school experience so unique.”

For decades, blue-versus-grey competition had been a massive staple of Poly tradition. Junsch, the Poly’s girls’ basketball coach and a P.E. teacher, graduated from Poly in 1971, and recalls countless memories of the Poly Cup. “There was a week between [sports] seasons where we had blue-grey competition. It could be anywhere from swimming to basketball to wrestling,” Junsch said.

Winston has set the Spirit Cup to include not only athletics but also academics, arts, and even service. Athletics has historically been Poly’s primary focus, but these additions to a yearlong and schoolwide event demonstrate how Poly is striving toward further inclusivity and positive change.

“It’s one of my overarching goals for our school to be the funnest school,” said Audrius Barzdukas, Poly’s head of school, when asked what he was most excited about in terms of the Spirit Cup. “I want our school to be the place where our kids are the happiest…I think that the [Spirit] Cup will help us work toward that goal.”

Blue-versus-grey competition has been a staple of Poly tradition and is poised to continue in the future with the Spirit Cup’s revival.

“Teachers will come and go; the student demographics are going to change,” said Winston. “Change is inevitable, but what I really want to do this year is think about what traditions, like a Spirit Cup, can withstand the changes of time.”