Wes Student Athletes, Middletown 5th-Graders Get in on Harlem Shake Craze

Fifth-graders at Macdonough Elementary School had a chance to add their talents to the Harlem Shake phenom earlier this month when the Wesleyan athlete advisory group filmed a three-take wonder with the kids.

As part of an ongoing relationship between the university and North End of Middletown grade school, Wesleyan University Pregame members played a silly game of Duck, Duck, Goose on camera and after 15 minutes of filming during recess came up with a video that made them all stars.

“We’ve had a strong relationship with Wesleyan for years, but this year the relationship with the Wesleyan Student Athlete Advisory Council has been strengthened and formalized,” principal Jon Romeo said. “They are active in helping our kids make connections between SURFS UP and behaviors on the playground during recess.”

SURFS UP is Macdonough’s behavioral values qualities of self-responsibility, understanding, respect, fairness and safety, which are rewarded each month to exemplary students.

“The opportunity to have Wesleyan student-athletes at Macdonough School to help promote positive behavior on the playground is something we truly value,” Romeo said.   

Jeffrey McDonald is advisor of the Wesleyan Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, which represents every sport at the university. The group had seen other colleges’ renditions of the ubiquitous Shake and wanted in.

Co-presidents Adam Kaiser ’13 and Kaylin Berger ’13, came up with the idea that the SAAC should do it with Macdonough students, he said.  

“Macdonough has really become our ‘adopted’ elementary school where we visit regularly with their students during recess and class. So it just made a lot of sense to film it with them.”

Naturally, Romeo loved the idea. In fact, teachers at Macdonough had just recently done revealed their own Harlem Shake video at the monthly SURFS UP meeting.

Wes Pregame, the Wesleyan student version of ESPN, agreed to shoot the video, McDonald said. 

"We had an absolute blast shooting the video at Macdonough with their 5th grade students. Both the mascot, Wes Cardinal, and Macdonough's mascot, The Owl, took part, along with student-athletes from both basketball teams, the football team, women's lacrosse team, both hockey teams and track teams," McDonald said.  

“At times when we visit during recess, we have played ‘Duck, Duck, Goose’ with their students, usually the kindergartners,” he said. “Even though it was the 5th grade, we decided to start it out with the game and then go from there.  Eric Lopez ’15, part of Wes Pregame, did an amazing job as the director and later editing and producing the final cut of the video.”

In just three takes and 25 minutes later, the group finished filming. “A big thank you goes to Jon Romeo for being so supportive of the idea and for his continued efforts in this flourishing partnership between our two schools,” McDonald said. 

“It all began with WesPregame (Kate Gibbel '15, Annalora Von Pentz '14, and myself) throwing around ideas with the athletic department for a Harlem Shake video with one of the athletic teams that were in season,” Lopez said.

“Arriving at Macdonough, we had all of the fifth-graders out on the blacktop and once I pulled out the camera the kids were extremely excited. The student athletes who joined us for the video shoot were dressed up in costume, even as a crayon, and were prepared for a fun time.

Lopez cherished the change to let his inner fifth-grader shine during the shooting. “I've personally never had so much fun shooting for Wesleyan,” he said.

WesPregame aims to give students and the public an inside look at Wesleyan University athletics by bringing live pregame shows on game days, interviews with coaches and students athletes, unique special segments and a Week-in Review weekly talk show.

WesPregame emerged out the minds of Michael Yoshida and '13 and Lionel Nyange '12 in 2010. It is a student-run program brought to you by Wesleyan's Instructional Media Services.

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