Athletic Association Hosts “Rock the Vote” Float Night in Honor of Presidential Election

The Smith College Athletic Association hosted its annual event, Float Night last Friday, Oct. 12. Organizations, houses and various other groups came together and were assigned canoes to decorate, and then competed in a race at Paradise Pond. With the upcoming elections, this year’s theme was “Rock the Vote.” 

The participating sports teams included crew, rugby, soccer and cross country, while the houses that came out for the event were Wilson, Gardiner, Scales and Hubbard. The teams chanted and cheered as they marched forward with their decorated canoes, adding to the spirit of the evening. The race began at 8:15 p.m., with Gardiner emerging as the champion, and the spirit award going to Smith soccer.   

“Most teams followed the election theme of Rock the Vote, but each with their own little twist,” said Athletic Association President Amanda Zakoske ’13. “Rugby stuck with their team chant of ‘Ruck, maul, pillage and burn. Eat the babies.’ Soccer announced that the upcoming election was being canceled because Soccer Owns Everything. Crew was also quite a spirited boat.”

The Gardiner House canoe had the Washington Monument and the White House at the two ends of the canoe. “Since the overall theme of Float Night was ‘Rock the Vote,’ we made our boat, ‘A Presidential de-boat – debate – between President Obummer and Governor Titt Romney, hosted by Gardiner House and located between the White House and the Washington Monument,’ said Gardiner House President Catherine Popovici. 

According to Wilson resident Rachel Goar ’14, their theme was “Wilson Goes to Washington.” 

“We made a model of the Capital Building and the Washington Monument,” explained Goar. “For the Capital Building, we used a bunch of cardboard boxes and spray painted them white and made pillars out of the paper, and for the Washington Monument we used poster board and wrapped it in shiny paper and used sparkly pipe cleaners as a ‘firework’ at the top of the monument.”  

Float Night is a bonding event for members of all participating communities. “It’s always exciting for the first-years to come to their first Float Night and there was a lot of Wilson house pride,” said Goar. 

The event is also something of a tradition in many houses on campus. According to Popovici, “Float Night is such a fun and unique event and it’s exciting to creatively come together as a house. Float Night is a really important event for Gardiner House traditionally and it was great to compete and win this year.” 

The music that WOZQ provided also kept the atmosphere charged and lively throughout the night.

According to Zakoske, overall, the event was a success. “Our reps did an awesome job working and advertising the event to their houses and friends,” she said. “I think the biggest part of our success was [due to] the Athletic Association’s Special Coordinator – Brittany Purrington; she did an amazing job … I would say overall the event was one of our best in years.”