Now that the school year is finally winding down, Nashoba faculty has begun planning fun activities for both upper and underclassmen. The first of many was Bubble Soccer.

Anatomy teacher, Johnna Doyle, and Nashoba senior, Lucas Delisle, teamed up together to bring you, the hard working students of Nashoba… Bubble Soccer.

The tournament took place on the turf, May 8th at 7 pm and continued until 9:30pm. The sixteen teams played against one another in a hilarious bracket style tournament. Players were knocked down and trampled over, but somehow managed to stand back up and continue playing. The teams were out for blood, and blood is what they got.

By 7 o’clock sharp, the bleachers were filled, the music was pumping and the commentators, and the famous Nashoba comedians Mr. Burks and Mr. Griffith, were warming up their vocals.

There were 16 teams total and students played 15 games (single elimination).  The final four teams included Big Balls, Squid Squad, Bubble Blowers and Ball Stars. Balls Stars and Big Balls made to the final round with the Ball Stars ultimately taking the gold.

Doyle comments, “I had been approached about bubble soccer a year ago through my work with Lancaster Recreation.  When Lucas asked Ms. Rich about it, she had him come see me. This looked like so much fun and you didn’t need to be a soccer player to participate – the bubbles made it a pretty even playing field.”

If you couldn’t make it to the games, no need to fear, you will inevitably find photos on FaceBook because almost every student in the audience recorded the drollery and put it some form of social media; most notably “snapchat stories.”

The bubbles were rented from MA Sport League out of Boston.  The cost of the bubbles is based on the amount time you rent them for. Doyle and DeLisle spent $500 for 2.5 hours of bubble use and were able to raise an additional $450 for the Senior class. It will go towards anything fun-related or academic-related that the senior class might want or need.

Doyle adds, “The most enjoyable part of the night was watching the kids get stuck upside down in bubbles.  Listening to Mr. Griff and Mr. Burke and their ‘bad’ jokes on the PA system and seeing the school come together for an event and be well behaved, excited and entertained. I was unable to participate because of my shoulder surgery… But next year!”

This event was headed by Lucas DeLisle and as many of you know, he has some “out there” ideas. But where did the inspiration for this come from? He says, “Last year, there were a few videos circulating on YouTube of this game that I had never seen before. A few friends and I were watching the videos and Chad Sarnoski and I started to discuss how cool it would be to have that at Nashoba. The idea eventually died out but thanks to the Marketing & Community Partnerships class taught by Mrs. Foley, I used a lot of skills that I learned in the class in order to make this event successful and I was able to bring it back to life this year!”

The idea spread thanks to DeLisle’s expert advertising skills. “For advertising, I put up posters around the school, tweeted A LOT, posted on Facebook, and spread the news by word of mouth. Word of mouth is very effective in a high school because it’s a small community where word tends to travel fast.”

For some, people getting trampled in the bubbles was not the best part of the evening, the announcers were. DeLisle says, “Thankfully Griff and Mr. Burks still have their jobs after all the borderline-inappropriate ball jokes they made that night.”

Mr. Griffith is known at Nashoba for having the balls to say whatever he feels  (pun intended). He discusses his infamous legacy in a recent interview. “Any time you get to announce a game with team names that include ‘Deez Balls’ and have guys the size of Travis Macko wearing neon shorts, it’s kinda hard to screw up. The fun part is just teasing the kids and trying to weasel a dinner out of Miss O’Donnell,” Griff jokes.

Griff has personally never been inside a bubble, but it is high on his bucket list. “I’d like to think I could send Mr. Burkes flying… I’m just glad Macko didn’t give him a traumatic brain injury.  He has such a limited number of functional neurons as it is…”

Ball jokes aside, the event was a success and Nashoba came together as a community to laugh at fellow peers. DeLisle concludes, “Everyone I talked to had an incredible time. One person even said that it was the most fun they’ve ever had in all four years at Nashoba! That was awesome to hear! I’ve already talked with people who want to take over the event next year, I think it will carry on. Everyone had a blast! The goal is to keep the tradition going!”