The Sage Hill School Athletics Dept. held its inaugural combined all sports banquet Dec. 8 in the Peter V. Ueberroth Gymnasium for fall sports including football, water polo, cross-country, girls’ volleyball, girls’ tennis and girls’ golf.

The department decided to hold a community-wide celebration of all fall sports for several reasons.

Head of School Gordon McNeill believes that this year’s banquet, “gave equal opportunity to all athletic teams.”  In years past, some athletic banquets have been taken seriously, while others have not.

Faculty also wanted to see equal representation among each player across all grade levels.

Athletic Directors J.R. Tolver and Megan Cid hosted the opening celebration in the center of the gym, calling each head coach up for a speech about the season.

This opening segment gave insight about the sports to parents and to other students.  All teams advanced to league playoffs this year, while some like girls’ volleyball — runners-up in division three girls’ volleyball state CIF championships — even went beyond.

After individual CIF recognitions, seniors filed onto the floor to stand in front of their respective photographs adjacent to the podium.  As a memento for the athletes’ senior year, each player was allowed to take his or her own photo home.

“I really liked the senior recognition. It was a very unifying celebration of their accomplishments,” said junior varsity cross country member Rebecca Fudge.

Athletes and parents then split up into their individual sports for a more personalized ceremony.  Each breakout room followed the format of a typical banquet.  Awards stacked the podium as players and coaches alike said goodbye to the seniors.

There were few complaints, although Fudge hopes that next time, “she will have time for dinner because the introduction caused the banquet to run an hour longer than usual.”

Overall, the ceremony was able to connect athletes from different teams to celebrate their combined and individual accomplishments.

View more pictures of the banquet here.