The eighth annual Bruin Cup will be at 6:30 p.m. Sunday, May 19, in the Crossing Church Auditorium, 3615 Southland Dr. The event is a point of pride for the athletics department and the students who compete.
“The reason for this ceremony is to recognize the great coaches and athletes that [RBHS] has to offer in one big night,” said senior Wyatt Towe, a football and baseball player.
Towe serves as a chair on the student board.
The committee started meeting in the fall on the last Thursday of every month. Some of the main duties of the student-run board include script writing, photo and video, hosting and publicity.
Bruin Cup is largely a student-run event, aided by Athletics Director David Egan. He collaborates with the Bruin Booster Club, a committee that finances RBHS athletic teams, to bridge the gap between parents and students in the planning of the event.
“We try to challenge and empower those students to ultimately be the creators and the executors of the event,” Egan said.
Each coach chooses two students deemed good leaders and workers to be part of the board, Egan said.
Typically, one senior and one non-senior are picked to be part of the board, so one person on the board has a year of experience and the other can gain a year before they become a senior.
Junior tennis player Mary Francis Hose’s coach chose her to be on the Bruin Cup committee. She represents the tennis team and is part of the photo and video committee. The committee is responsible for creating the beginning slide shows and videos of all of the sports.
“[It] was difficult to get in contact with people that had access to a lot of photos or film clips, but the finished product really reflects all that effort,” Hose said.
She organized photos and videos from friends, Snapchat memories and her own camera.
Since the first Bruin Cup ceremony eight years ago, many of the awards have stayed constant. These include the Academic Excellence Award, Senior Scholars Award, MVP, Team Performance of the Year, Outstanding Sportsmanship, Exceptional Leadership and Rookie of the Year. Some of these awards have also been adapted to apply to students on junior varsity (JV) teams in an effort to celebrate more students.
“We’ve added things like MVP, Outstanding Leadership and Outstanding Sportsmanship for a non-varsity player award. We’re trying to make a point to recognize the JV and freshman level kids,” Egan said.
As for choosing award winners, the 23 different teams must go through different funnels.
Coaches nominate athletes and a separate selection committee identifies three finalists for each category.
“Really what it is,” Egan said, “is a group of people that have very strong connections to RBHS historically [and] very strong connections to [RBHS] athletics historically. They’re big supporters. They’re big followers, but they aren’t directly connected to any of our sports.”
After they choose the three finalists, Egan creates and sends ballots to coaches, teachers, administrators and student board members who ultimately choose the winners; however, awards are only one portion of the event. Besides the awards, a point is made to recognize athletic district or state championships and any individual awards.
Egan said his favorite part of the ceremony is seeing the athletes execute the event without help from faculty. After his beginning speech, the stage belongs to the students.
“They do all of it. To stand up on a stage like that, get behind a microphone, look out to a thousand people and present — that’s nerve-wracking,” Egan said. “To see them do that and do it well, that’s always the most rewarding part of the event for me.”