The fiefs, bugles, and trumpets are sounding. Richter scales are all erratic, seven counts of seismic activity in from area code 03444. Small trees are uprooted, nearly dangerous slides of snow rumble across Rt. 101, a great flotsam of rusted Moxie cans and Head of School Brad Bates’s Chevy Bolt have been carried down the hill to Peterborough. Seven polychrome columns converge on Upper Field. Proctors cast daggers at those they called friends only days before.

“It took me six years to win Winterfest.” 

“Am I the only one who feels unreasonably elated after winning Winterfest?” 

Winterfest, Dublin Schools’ marquee intra-institutional ruckus, kicks off next Friday! Signs point to this year’s edition being an all time affair, with diluvial quantities of snow forecasted and a bunch of new young faculty ready to embarrass themselves at Friday’s lip sync contest. And even though Mr. Brown just wrote a piece for the Dublin Advocate cautioning against indulging temptations toward factionalism, Winterfest is one occasion where factionalism is okay, encouraged, (respectfully) required. It’s Red v. Orange v. Yellow v. Green v. Blue v. Pink v. Purple for forty-eight hours in February. There are lines in the snow, and you best not get caught in the no man’s land of like vermillion or cyan.  

Proctors drafted their teams behind closed doors this past Wednesday, planning to announce rosters during Friday's Flex Block.

Pink Team Captain Morgan R. ‘27 let the Quad in on her thinking ahead of draft day, explaining that draft stocks are heavily influenced by an individual’s hype-factor, a soft measure of someone’s willingness to get loud and champion their team’s cause. Athletic ability comes into play, too, as do theatrical and musical prowess. But really it’s all about spirit and willingness to embrace the occasion. 

Talking to Morgan reminded me of a passage in Infinite Jest where David Foster Wallace describes tennis as “chess on the run,” discoursing through the medium of an eccentric old tennis coach named Schtitt on how, in tennis, one’s primary opponent is themselves. Somewhat less headily, the same idea is expressed in the sports self-help book The Inner Game of Tennis. But the point is that what DFW has to say about tennis also applies to Winterfest.

The whole event is ridiculous spectacle where we do sometimes embarrassing things in public spaces. Our friends, colleagues, students, and parents are all there to bear witness to these embarrassing things. For many of us, participation in Winterfest represents a triumph of the will over the sympathetic nervous system, every fiber of our bodies contemplating doom as we reach for the mic.  

During Winterfest we compete against other teams in fun and light hearted games, but there’s also a meaningful part of the event that is about each participant getting comfortable doing sometimes embarrassing and vulnerable things (viz., lip sync). Via Schtitt, DFW says of competitive dynamics on the tennis court “the competing boy on the net’s other side: he is not the foe: he is more the partner in the dance. He is the what you call it excuse or occasion for meeting the self… You compete with your own limits…” It's much the same with Winterfest.

Below are listed Winterfest rosters. One of these teams will reign supreme as champion of Dublin’s 2025 Winterfest!