Thirteen senior boys, three months of practice and one ridiculous show. Gradman has been a tradition at Athens Drive for now 18 years, and I consider myself lucky to have seen two shows and have been a part of one.
Describing Gradman is hard, it is as simple as that. I find myself trying to explain to people at other schools what it is, and I struggle through something like, “Well, it’s kind of a mix of a pageant and a talent show but for senior boys with a lot of dancing and it’s supposed to be funny.” But after now experiencing Gradman for three years, my description is not exactly untrue. The only major aspect I’ve left out is that each contestant picks a charity and is expected to raise money for that charity throughout the entire production process.
As popular as the tradition of Gradman is, many people still find plenty of faults with the show and how it affects the student body.
Some teachers find the show to be a distraction from academics and productivity. Each of the contestants and their respective escorts carry around plastic jugs to raise money for their chosen charities in the months leading up to the show, and I can understand why teachers are not fans of them. If I’m going to be honest, high school boys can be obnoxious, and it’s not uncommon to see them running loudly through the halls between classes trying to get the most students to give up their spare change.
The production of Gradman is also extremely time consuming, and I even found myself getting home from rehearsals at 10:30 p.m. with no energy to do homework or study for a test I had the next day. It is hard enough already for high schoolers to balance their schedules, but I know a lot of the students involved with Gradman ended up giving the show higher priority than school sometimes.
However, despite these parts of Gradman that people view as negative, I’ve been exposed to so many positive experiences through Gradman.
I’ve gotten to watch thirteen unique senior boys, who may not have otherwise been close friends, get to know each other and work so hard to motivate each other for months, all with the help of Chris Remaley, senior advisor. I’ve watched an internal competition be created between the boys as to who could raise the most money for charity, even though the money was not taken into account for scoring. And even on the nights with four-hour practices when I was really, really frustrated with the boys for not knowing their dances as well as they should’ve, in the end I knew they would put it all together for a fantastic show. And they did.
Gradman brings Athens Drive together, and has done just that for now 18 years. It allows the senior class to start the final stretch towards graduation, and I’m so thrilled I got to join that legacy.
