Creating a team dynamic: Pandemic Style

This school year as we all know has been different in many ways. Classes are all online, Ivy League sports have been canceled for the foreseeable future, and many of us have been spending more time with our parents in the past six months than we have in the past couple of years combined. For first-years, this is their first introduction to college life.

When I joined the cheerleading team as a freshman, I joined looking for a family and I was not disappointed. Throughout the past two and a half years I have forged life-long friendships and created numerous memories that I will have forever. The cheerleading team played a huge role in my first year at Princeton, and I know that my fellow cheerleaders feel the same way. At the beginning of this year, all upperclassmen were on the same page in knowing that we wanted to try and provide this same experience for all of our new members. But how do you do this in a pandemic?

The challenge is finding a way for the team to truly bond, even when we cannot all be together. While in past years, we may all fondly remember our shared experiences of freezing on Powers Field, or finally hitting that stunt that we had all thought impossible, this year we are all bonding through two main ways: surviving this semester and (surprisingly) Trivia Crack.

While as I mentioned earlier this semester is different, it is nevertheless still Princeton, meaning that while the pandemic rages on so do problem-sets and take-home exams. Every week we as a team have a weekly zoom, where every person shares how they are doing, how school is going, etc. It is always the highlight of my week, as even if I haven't been having the best day, hearing the joy in Andrew's voice as he talks about the 60ft of Christmas garland he got on sale at Target brings a smile to my face, and nothing brings me back to memories of my own freshman year like listening to all our first-year members in writing seminar commiserate together. It is a chance for us to learn more about each other, and relate to each other. These meetings are fun and informal, and make the people in our 2D zoom squares feel 3D.

We also have been trying to do a variety of not zoom events, because let's face it after a long day of zoom classes, no one wants to zoom again even if it is a fun zoom with teammates. So we try to engage in other ways whether that be having lively discussions in our GroupMe chat or engaging in a very spirited and surprisingly competitive Trivia Crack Tourney. The past couple of days have brought us closer together as some celebrate their crushing wins, and others mourn their narrow defeats. Some of us are learning how to play the game for the first time, while others break out old skills from middle school. While the game itself may not be the most exciting, this tournament has brought us all some much needed smiles as we enter the last week of the semester.

Here is our bracket as it stands now. Halfway through the tournament, and some claws have started to come out. But, who wins isn't what is important. What's important is that when we all look back as a team at this semester, we can all have this shared memory of our frenzied week of Trivia Crack games, filled with lots of laughter to remember.