Knightly News

The Navy team is the winner of Knight Fight 2024! Congratulations!

Upper School English teacher Patrick Stephens highlights the work done to reinvigorate this Episcopal tradition.

Before I arrived here at Episcopal, a traditional class competition was in place, where each grade competed in various events throughout the year to earn points for the coveted "class cup." While healthy competition was encouraged, the system was flawed as seniors seemed to be awarded points regardless of their performance. With this in mind, Student Council President Caroline Waters and Mr. Engholm proposed a new version of the class cup, replacing the class competition with a two-team model. The entire Upper School was split into the Gold and Navy teams, and the "Knight Fight" was born on Retreat Day 2023.

The event was a huge success. Students painted their faces and dressed in team colors, showing their enthusiasm and school spirit. However, I noticed there was no announced prize for the winning team. As such, I set about to design a championship prize for the "Knight Fight" competition that would match our school's unique spirit and fit in the year’s theme of “The Spirit of Episcopal.” As a fan of a particular sport – or should I say, “sports entertainment”– I began designing the perfect reward: a professional wrestling-style championship belt. This would be a belt that would incorporate our school's colors and iconography. I spent quite some time brainstorming and designing, which was an undertaking that led me to some roadblocks mostly centered around prohibitive costs. While waiting on potential avenues for fundraising, I had a lightbulb moment: our school has a workshop with a CNC machine, so why not see if it can cut more than wood? After getting the confirmation that it could, I realized that we could use it to make the belt ourselves. I also lucked into finding an inexpensive used belt online that we can mount the metal plates on. This championship was becoming more and more of a reality!

With things in serious motion, I chose Morning Announcements during Homecoming Week to announce to the students my idea for the belt. The feedback on the idea was overwhelmingly positive, so much so that I was told it had reignited excitement for the "Knight Fight" competition. So for the remainder of the fall semester, I finalized the design, adapting what was the classic WWF Intercontinental Championship design to match both the school and the specific belt I found. Once the Spring semester began, both myself and Dr. McLean set out to actually make the belt. It took some time (and quite a bit of metal-shaving mess) but we finally had a finished product. Well, nearly finished. Once his part was complete, I needed to make the final touches. This meant painting the actual belt (as it was not the navy blue I needed it to be) and painting the actual gold plates. Still, with only a month left in school, a championship belt was finally complete and ready to be revealed. 

Only time will tell if this reignites the Knight Fight and makes it stand the test of time, year after year. I hope it does, and I hope that these young men and women have a prize–a championship–that they can hold proud for their team. Go Gold and Navy! Go Knights!

Patrick Stephens is an Upper School English teacher. He previously served as the English Department Chair at Ascension Christian High School in Gonzales. In addition to his role as department chair, Stephens taught juniors and seniors. Before that, he taught college-level English at Southeastern Louisiana University and Baton Rouge Community College. Stephens earned a Bachelor of Arts in English and Creative Writing from Louisiana State University and a Master of Arts in English Literature from Southeastern. He is qualified as a Dual Enrollment Course Facilitator and an ACT Test Center Manager.

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