Alec Frey ’16: The Junior class, led by the clever minds of Connor Longen and Drew Debacco, has begun a grade wide game of “assassins.” “Assassins,” an activity popular on high school and college campuses throughout the country, is a less traditional way of promoting class unity. For the Juniors, the goal is mostly to have fun, but Connor Longen also hopes that the game will maybe “bring the class together in a positive way.”
The idea of the game is for players to act as assassins and try to eliminate each other using fake weapons. Students usually use rubber bands as their weapons of choice, but objects could be anything from nerf guns to water guns or even spoons as James Gibson ’14 explained.
After the first couple days, in which everyone is “going nuts,” each player is limited to his/her own assigned individual until the “hit” is successful, at which point the assassin takes on the target of the previous mark, according to Connor Longen ’14. However, the difficulty of the game lies in the fact that the kills must be made without any “witnesses,” junior class members who may report a noticed assassination. To administer the legitimacy of each kill as well as ensure that the game continues running smoothly, both Connor Longen and Drew Debacco have acted as referees.
The idea to host the game came began with Longen, who was immediately encouraged by his fellow classmates to put something together. Longen’s brother, Tim Longen ’12, told Conner about how the class of 2012 had played the game last year in an attempt to encourage unity in a fun and exciting way. Once Connor decided to implement the game into the class of 2014, he and Drew organized the registration through Facebook. Unfortunately, despite the intensity with which the game was began, it has since slowed down due to the steadily dwindling number of players still showing enthusiasm. In the first two days, nearly half of the participants were eliminated in the excitement. Still, Drew Debacco claims that they will declare a winner by the end of the school year. The game has no time limit, though, as it revolves entirely around elimination.
Although fun and unifying for the junior class the Assassins game is, according to Mr. Collins, Fifth Form Dean not as innocent as the students make it seem. Collin’s opinion about the Assassins game can be summarized by the ever-growing rubber band ball in his office.
Even without the faculty support though, Drew Debacco still believes that the game serves class-building values as “each player has friends watch their back and help them try not to get hit.” In fact, to many Juniors, Collins’ vigilance simply necessitates a greater level of subterfuge to each kill.
Meanwhile, the game goes on, with numbers of active players decreasing day by day. To the remaining players, good luck. Keep your heads up and stay alert. Also, make sure your weapon of choice doesn’t find itself wrapped up with many others in Mr. Collin’s hands.