The Winthrop Athletic Department celebrates the end of the school year with the WUSPYs. Created by the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and the Office of Student Success, student-athletes, coaches and staff members will gather for a fun evening with the new format of the student-athlete end of the year event. It is planned and created by SAAC. Hank Harrawood, the Associate AD for Student Success and Compliance, shared a little more insight to what this event is.
“The WUSPYs are an amazing opportunity to recognize and celebrate our student athletes and their success,” Harrawood said. “It is also a great time to let them relax and have fun. We highlight sports teams and certain athletes as well as those who have excelled off the field with academics and community service.”
Joey Jennings, senior psychology major and president of SAAC, shared his views of the WUSPYs from a more personal insight.
“The WUSPYs are special to me,”Jennings said. “My freshman and sophomore years, it was a just a boring awards ceremony that we felt like we were forced to attend in the midst of finals week. Now, it’s something special, fun and allows for us to breathe and celebrate what we have done. Seasons can be frustrating, but this is a good and reflective time.”
Emily Torris, senior history major, also shared her thoughts on the event, as well as Dylan Patterson, junior sports management major.
“The WUSPYs are a time for all of the athletes to come together at the end of the year and celebrate all of our hard work,” Torris said. “It makes the athletic department feel like a community, and it is a fun way to close out the year.”
“The WUSPYS mean a lot to me. It’s a chance to dress up and honor the student athletes for excelling in their sport or in the classroom. It’s fun to see my friends get recognized for their hard work,” Patterson said.
Both Jennings and Torris went in to further detail about this year’s event.
“This year we are planning to have a Red Carpet theme,” Jennings said. “So, we are intending on showing the athletes a good time, allowing for them to reflect on the successes of the season in a fancy way. Hopefully, this will give the athletes a sense of accomplishment and gratitude towards their efforts. Last year was our first WUSPYs, so obviously there were some good things and some things that went wrong. We’re hoping to build off of what was good and fix what went wrong. For example, we want to have more awards for things that often go unnoticed but deserve recognition, we want to include better videos, honor the seniors in a special way, etc.”
“The planning that goes behind it is coming up with a theme, figuring out ways to implement the theme throughout the WUSPYs, coming up with unique awards and picking MCs are our main tasks. My favorite part is being able to dress up and hang out with my friends on my own team as well as those on other teams,” Torris said.
“My absolute favorite part is dressing up, only because we don’t have many opportunities and/or events where we are able to dress up. Also, I love the dessert served at the event,” Patterson said.
Student-athletes can expect to be recognized for awards such as, best performance, rookie of the year, best male and female athlete, best game face, best team and more.
