McClintock is known for its many traditions; however, those traditions have changed over the last 50 years.

Since most of the alumni that are now teaching at McClintock graduated in different years, they all have different memories of how the school used to be.

“A lot of the traditions from when I was a student probably stuck around, they’ve just changed a lot in participation,” health teacher Niki Steuck Sheppard, alumnus of the class of 1996, said.

Because they graduated years ago, many of the alumni that are now teachers remember traditions that no longer take place on campus.

“We used to do senior ‘slave’ sales, where seniors could auction themselves off and underclassmen could buy them and make them dress up funny for a day, take the underclassmen out or drive them around,” math teacher Ivan Barkdoll, alumnus of the class of 1980, said.

The senior slave sale isn’t the only tradition that’s been discontinued; many of the old traditions have either changed or disappeared entirely.

“The football team used to dress in a coat and tie on every game day,” world history teacher Michael Gibbons, alumnus of the class of 1985, said. “At pep rallies, you couldn’t step on the ‘MC’ at center court. It was out of respect; you weren’t supposed to disrespect the ‘MC.’”

Other traditions that have since been stopped are the food fight that used to take place on senior lawn, the spring fair that would happen every year on the softball field, and late starts that would happen much more often than they do now.

“Good things come and go, but many of the fun things really aren’t allowed anymore,” Barkdoll said.

Even though many traditions aren’t the same as they were, things like spirit week, Mock Rock, and sending classes out to watch the first home baseball game of the year are traditions everyone at McClintock knows about.

“The spring baseball game is one of my favorite [traditions],” Sheppard said. “It’s in that perfect time of the year where the weather is perfect, and teachers get to take their students out to see a baseball game, something not many of the students probably get to do on their own anymore.”

While the traditions have come and gone, several teachers agree that the school was better the way it was when they were students.

“I miss the old McClintock, because I think this school had a distinct flavor,” Gibbons said. “It was built around tradition. The traditions were really strong, and everybody knew them.”