LIMESTONE, Maine — The Magnet School’s popular foam weapon class, Boffer, is celebrating its 10-year anniversary this year.
Led by Michael McCartney, a humanities instructor who was named 2016 Aroostook County Teacher of the Year, leads up the class. Boffer has been a hit with students during its decade at MSSM.
“Boffer was introduced to MSSM a semester before we started requiring fitness classes,” McCartney said. It was initially a student-generated club.
McCartney said he was approached by some students about the club while he was working in the dorms as a resident instructor.
“They knew I was a medievalist,” McCartney said, “and I mentioned that I’d seen Boffer while I was at McGill (University in Montreal).”
When Boffer was in its infancy at MSSM, McCartney said he and the students placed a great emphasis on safety, and it has since become the longest running fitness program at MSSM.
When former Dean of Students Dintaman decided to add a fitness requirement to the MSSM curriculum, McCartney suggested that Boffer would make fitness much more palatable for students. Since then, he began teaching a Boffer class and serves as an adviser to the Boffer club, which consists of several student presidents.
The presidents learn a myriad of leadership skills through Boffer, and in addition to helping newcomers, refereeing games, and devising new game configurations, they often lead others during pre-game warm-up stretches.
“I’ve had to cap the class at 38 ever since we started,”McCartney said, “otherwise we would get more than that, and that’s about as much as I feel comfortable managing.”
Boffers meet on Mondays and Wednesdays, with students playing “Lava Capture the Flag,” on April 5. As the name would suggest, the student-devised game incorporates aspects of “Capture the Flag” with “The Floor is Lava.”
Photos by Christopher Bouchard
“We use markings on the basketball court to determine boundaries,” McCartney said. “The bridge is along the center of the court, the two three-point arcs are islands, and the lines near the bleachers act as a bridge. Everything else is lava.”
McCartney noted that, in his first two years at MSSM, students enjoyed playing “The Floor is Lava” throughout the MSSM building and, as a result, “Lava Capture the Flag” is a hit among MSSM residents.
Boffer is showing no signs of slowing down, and McCartney was proud to note that next year will mark the first time in the history of Boffer that MSSM will have more female than male presidents.
“Although it surprises me every time I say it, I am the longest serving fitness instructor at MSSM,” McCartney said before overseeing the club’s April 5 game of swords and strategy.
