Believe it or not, sometimes high school kids just don't know how to blow their own horns, and for Franklin's cadre of exceptional competition teams, a little help is more than warranted.
Dubbed a "championship ceremony," students gathered in the Franklin High School Gymnasium on the morning of Friday, March 31 to celebrate the achievements of four of the school's competition programs.
"Typically when you win a state championship, you have a gathering [just for the one team]," observed Franklin High's athletics and activities coordinator Christina Roux with the school's boys basketball team in mind. "It's not just the team itself. It's all the fans that came down with the team to see them play."
On Saturday, March 11 the Class 4A state boys basketball championship game was held in Tacoma. The quick Franklin High players forced 28 turnovers and subsequently crushed their challengers, Spokane's Central Valley High, 70 to 51. The Quakers were ranked fifth in the state heading into the tournament, but the team's underdog status didn't dissuade them a bit as their athleticism ruled the court.
While team sports are always a great hat to hang one's hometown pride on, there's more going on at Franklin than great hoops. Roux and her fellow teachers wanted to make sure everyone of their students, and the community that supports them, recognized the school's three other highly successful teams this year.
"We wanted to get a picture of a larger sense of success," Roux stated. "The assembly served to recognize our success in athletics, academics and art."
Franklin's senior class Dance Posse troupe won the Bubblin' Brown Sugar hip hop dance contest held on March 4 at the University of Washington's Hec Edmundson Pavilion. The annual contest is hosted by Garfield High School, and this year's event featured a dozen Seattle-area teams pitting their moves against one another. Franklin's Dance Posse has been competing in the contest for the last several years, but this was their first win.
The third Quaker success story goes to Franklin's mock trial team. According to Roux, mock trial is a form of stylized debate the takes place in a fictional courtroom setting. Competing teams go up against each other as either the defense or the prosecution. While winning the case is important, Roux said the ultimate goal is to put on a good debate performance. Franklin's team of 14 (from attorneys to witnesses) managed to do just that and impressed the panel of three raters (a.k.a. judges) to garner a second place finish at the state competition, where Roux says King County teams have traditionally dominated.
The morning's accolades also went to Franklin's History Day team. Three of the team's members have been invited to display their historical work at Fremont's History House, and one has been invited to compete in the state competition this April.
With Franklin's vice principal Bruce Bivins emceeing the event, each team was asked to stand on the gym floor while their coaches reminded them how hard they worked and how much they deserved their recent awards and recognition.
"It was a celebration of the whole gamut, the whole range of where Franklin is successful," asserted Roux.
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