The fourth annual All For One Day was held this morning.
Named for the decades old Bearcat exclusive chant “All For One, One For All, Bearcats All The Way,” the event, athletic director josh Walker told more 240 athletes in grades seven through 12 who converged on Bearcat Gym this morning, serves as a tone setter for the school year.
This year’s event featured a guest speaker in Kyle Elmore who told the group they had an opportunity to make a decision of unity.
“Because I know for a fact that unity is not something than can be forced on you. It is a decision you have to make for yourself,” said Elmore
Elmore then recounted the story of Hernan Cortes, who led a Spanish mission to conquer the Aztecs.
After a win their first battle in Veracruz the goal was to proceed to the center of Mexico to meet Montezuma, but soon things went awry and the group reconvened on the beach where Cortes commanded that they “burn the boats,” thus making retreat an impossibility.
“Their boats were an opportunity to run from their fear, to turn back from the danger. They would be no longer be focused on the goal, and give up,” said Elmore. “Cortes didn’t want that mentality in himself, and he didn’t want it in his men.”
The phrase “burn the boats” was etched into rubber bracelets the athletes all wore along with matching shirts provided by Union Bank.
Cortes, he stated, was then able to defeat an empire 200 years strong.
“That’s the mindset of a victor. The mindset of a champion,” said Elmore.
Elmore then implored the athletes to burn the boats when embarking on their 2024-2025 seasons.
“I’m not turning back. Nothing behind me. No fear. We move forward,” Elmore said.
Athletes also heard from Teresa Prewett, who is one of three BHS grads along with Dr. Andy Daniel and Dr. Keith Bolyard who give back through an untold amount of hours of service to BHS athletics.
Walker also took the opportunity to remind the athletes that the title of athlete holds them to a higher standard in the classroom, hallways and away from campus, reiterating the "best is the standard" mantra put forth before last year’s event.
Launched after pandemic restrictions were relaxing, the event brings together athletes for a series of athletic based team building exercises, culminating in a giant slip and slide.
Teams, crafted as evenly as possible, had sessions of burpees/Toyotas/bleacher running on the front court of the gym, an agility based obstacle course with a layup on the back court, another agility based session with a volleyball theme in the safe room, football related work including pushing a sled and bear crawling in the fieldhouse, and some brain/trivial pursuit work in the cafeteria.
All events were timed per team with the top two teams pairing off for an obstacle course featuring a medicine ball, more agilities and a soapy slide down the hill in front of the fieldhouse.
The winning team this year was the Gray team under the direction of Jake Fennell. Fennell’s team outpaced the Purple team of Rachael May in the final event.
Fennell and May had both been in charge of runner-up groups each of the last two years.
Helping the event run smoothly was an army of volunteers manning water stations and helping the stations run smoothly, as well as cooks including Bill Montalvo and Mercedes Moon who cooked the Butterball turkey dogs for the lunch that followed the competition.
