I have done a ton of design work for the track and cross country program at Irvington High School in Fremont, CA. This spring, their head coach, Patrick asked me to brainstorm ideas to celebrate his outgoing seniors. For cross country, I created commemorative racing bibs that has each senior’s PRs and they get printed on Tyvek material like a real racing bib. But for track & field, we were struggling with ideas.
At most high schools, a team will have a “Senior Day” or “Senior Night” during their last home game of the season with heartfelt goodbyes for the seniors who are graduating. There are usually flower or candy leis, some sort of framed photos, or something else that works with the sport.
In this school district, there are five high schools, but only one has an all-weather track. The rest train on dirt tracks with training at the one all-weather track a couple of times a week. All meets are held at the all-weather track and at other schools in the region.
So, none of these schools really have a last home meet.
In an effort to figure out a way to celebrate outgoing seniors, Patrick had the idea to hold and event: Senior Night Relays. In cahoots with the other track coaches, they held an evening of relays and fun competition to celebrate their seniors. They ran a lot of the normal track relays along with some fun ones like “anything but a baton" and races with odd distances.
I designed a sticker for the night that included logos for all five participating high schools.
Patrick told me the event was a huge success and hopefully they’ll be able to continue to hold it in the years to come… or at least until all of the high schools can get their own all-weather track. Congrats seniors!
