To view Spirit Day photos, visit the photo gallery at the following link: http://photos.suburbanonesports.com/ The photos have been placed in the School Events and Signings Gallery/Truman.
LEVITTOWN - Bobby Ryan admits that he’s a fierce competitor, and as he watches his team compete in a relay, he alternates between cheering them on and offering words of encouragement. Don’t try telling the Harry S. Truman senior that Wednesday’s Spirit Day relays pitting the sixth graders from Bristol Township’s nine elementary schools aren’t intense.
They are.
“Sometimes for lacrosse, since I’m a captain, I have to be calm, but I’m pretty intense with everything,” Ryan said with a laugh. “I’m screaming at them, and they’re all like ‘What?’
“I just love it though.”
Truman’s fifth annual Spirit Day ran without a hitch on Wednesday as 614 sixth graders – Truman’s Class of 2017 – competed against each other. Directing them were members of Truman’s Varsity Club, which sponsors the annual event.
“We want to leave behind somewhat of a legacy,” said Ryan, who serves as president of the club. “This prepares the little kids, not even necessarily for high school but to work together.”
And that’s the general theme of Spirit Day. “We started this five years ago, and next year it will be our sixth year,” athletic director George Collins said. “We will have kids who participated as sixth graders who (next year) will be Varsity Club members in high school.
“My goal was to provide transition from the elementary school to high school, and I think we’re accomplishing that.”
For members of the Varsity Club, the day evokes memories of their elementary school years past.
“It reminds me of when I was in elementary school and we had our field day every year,” said senior Mallori Kolar, a member of the field hockey team. “Everyone loved it and got real excited and pumped up.
“I think when they see us out here – they’re just as excited as we are. They want to be just like us. We’re like they’re role models.”
The Varsity Club members are matched up with their former elementary schools, and Kolar is a bit disappointed that her John Fitch sixth graders aren’t as passionate about winning as she is.
“I want to win, and they don’t,” she said. “I’m always like that. I always want to win, but I love it – I love the little kids.”
Senior Daveed Ransome, a member of the basketball team, notes that it goes well beyond just competing for members of the Varsity Club.
“You get to give back to the community and see children as they grow up and blossom,” he said. “When they get to high school, they’ll say, ‘Oh, we have that memory.’
“We didn’t have that when we were in elementary school.”
Tyrone Lewis – a Truman alum and Bucks County’s most prolific high school basketball player – was enjoying his first Spirit Day. The former Tiger and Niagara University star, who played professional basketball in Israel last year, is serving as a personal care assistant at Clara Barton Elementary School this year as he rehabs his knee after tearing his right ACL.“We didn’t have this when I was in school, but we started something my sixth grade year at Ben Franklin and called it Franklin Follies,” he said.
And if you think Lewis wouldn’t remember anything about it, guess again.
“Every year we had a different theme,” he said. “One year it was villains versus heroes, and another year it was the Jetsons versus the Flintstones.
“For the record, we won three years in a row.”
According to Lewis, the students look forward to Spirit Day all year.
“They act good and do the right things all year just so they can be part of this,” he said. “It’s great to have all the kids here starting a rivalry.
“When they get to Truman, they’ll remember this. They’ll talk about this. I wish I had a chance to do something like this when I was in elementary school. It’s a lot of fun.”
Lewis plans to return to the basketball court after he has completed his rehab.
“But it’s a blessing to be back home, to be here for a year and hang out with the kids,” he said. “I’ve been gone for five years at Niagara.
“When I come home, these kids never get to see me.”
Lewis is the standard bearer not only in the area but at Niagara as well. He holds the record for points scored in a career in Bucks County with 2,211, and his picture is in the school’s trophy case as a reminder of an unparalleled high school career. At Niagara, he is the program’s career leader in steals and three-pointers and fourth all-time leading scorer.
“I like to put a face to the name and show them that I’ll always love Truman,” he said. “I’ll always come back here. No matter what people may say or how people may feel about it, this is my home school. “I’d do anything for my school. One thing I know – whether I’m in Niagara or Israel or any part of the world, I’m always representing my family, my college and my high school. It’s great to say that I’m from Truman.”
Lewis is living proof that – with hard work - you can realize your dreams.
“I want to show these kids – I grew up in the same neighborhood, in the same situation – single parents or whatever the case may be, and you can still make it, whether it’s playing college basketball or going to school for education or to become a doctor or lawyer,” he said. “I like to be that example for the kids.
“Every time I come home from college before I see any family members or anyone, I come to Truman and tell them I’m home and if they need me for anything to let me know. I’m here for my school.”
Spirit Day is the culmination of months of planning – much of it coordinated by athletic assistant Wendy Thayers.
“What you don’t see is the behind-the-scenes effort from our cafeteria workers to our transportation department,” Collins said. “We involve about two thousand people in this, and that’s what we’re trying to do – bring everyone together.
“This is all about energy. The ancient Greeks talked about our sound minds and sound bodies – they just got done all the PSSA testing, and here we are putting their bodies to work.”
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