By: Davis Stephens, '21
Holy Cross School is filled with many rich traditions and ringing the Victory bell is one of them. It’s one of the most unique traditions in high school sports in New Orleans. The Victory bell is located on the porch of the Administration Building, right above the double doors. Every time the football teams wins a game, they return to school to ring the bell, no matter the hour of the night. In more recent years, the school has incorporated other athletic teams to participate in such a fun tradition. If any athletic team wins a state championship, their senior team members get to ring the bell as well to celebrate their victories.
The tradition only allows the senior players to ring the bell while everyone else on the team holds them up. On top of the excitement of winning and having the opportunity to touch the treasured antique, ringing the bell has turned into a competition over the many years because every senior tries to flip the bell as many times as they can. This is a record many seniors aspire to obtain and wear as bragging rights well into their alumni status. In recent years, 2018 graduate, Austin Shaw, was known to have flipped the bell 25 times. On the old campus, seniors were known to flip the bell well into the 50s and 60s.
As a younger athlete at Holy Cross, one of the biggest goals is to be able to ring that bell one day. Senior baseball player Jake Kaufmann said “The Victory bell in my opinion is the coolest tradition at Holy Cross to this day. It’s unfortunate the baseball team doesn’t get to ring the bell after every win, but we don’t mess with tradition; so we are going to win state so we can ring the bell.” Kaufmann’s statement really shows how unique and important ringing the bell is to Holy Cross students whether you are a member of the football team or not. Current senior football player, Everett Hymel, who rang the bell for the first time a few weeks ago for the win against Chalmette, said, “On the way home from the game, all I could think about was ringing the bell. I’ve been waiting so long to do it. I got nervous whenever they picked me up, and as soon as I touched the bell, I got the chills. It was truly the most exciting thing I’ve ever done at Holy Cross.” Ringing the bell is one of the most important traditions for Holy Cross athletes to this day and provides memories and experiences for the HC family to last a lifetime. We are HC!