During this year’s annual Derby Day, senior Mary Clara Smith experienced more pain than she signed up for.

“I was on the water slide…I was just standing up after I’d slid on my stomach, and when I pulled my leg to get up, my knee popped out of my socket,” she said.

Smith temporarily dislocated her right knee while she was attending one of St. Mary’s Upper School’s most unique annual events.

A type of field day packed with friendly rivalry and fun activities — like kickball games, lip-synching contests and even a ‘color war’— Derby Day is a tradition that many students cherish. At the same time, certain Derby Day activities can be frequent sources of minor injuries, such as Smith’s.

Some events have posed such a problem that coaches have asked their athletes to sit them out.

Last year, at least three people got concussions while they were participating in the slip-and-slide event. Sophomore Brooke Brown was one of them.

“I was sliding across the slip-and-slide tarp, and when I was sliding across, I fell backward and hit my head,” she said.

As a result, she had to sit out of volleyball for several months. She still went to Derby Day this year, but she steered clear of the slip-and-slide.

Athletic Director John Bartholomew said he recognizes coaches’ need to protect student athletes from possible injuries by asking them to sit out on slip-and-slide events. This year, the St. Mary’s soccer coaches asked the team not to participate in the slippery competitions.

“One of the tricky parts about this particular time of year is that it’s right before [volleyball and soccer] playoffs,” Bartholomew said. “An injury to anybody on the team right before playoffs is not in the best interest of the team.”

By making adjustments to Derby Day, coaches are not only protecting their athletes — they are also protecting some of their brand-new athletic facilities.

Two years ago, Derby Day underwent a major change in order to preserve the newly renovated South Campus turf and track, where the event is held. Students used to hold a food fight on Derby Day.

Holly Hensarling, director of student life, who helps plan and direct Derby Day, said, “We had a brand-new turf and a brand-new track, and we [could not] use the food anymore, because it [would] ruin that.”

Hensarling and the Student Council also wanted to find a way to prevent students from ganging up on each other.

“People would go up and target one person,” she said.

In September 2022, the Student Council decided to switch from food to colored powder.

The grand finale of Derby Day — the ‘war’ between freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors — is now held using colored powder instead of food. Students gather on a giant tarp for the color war. Each grade has a different color powder to ‘fight’ the others with. Freshmen get yellow powder, sophomores get green, juniors get blue and seniors get red.

Although the powder is better for the new turf and track, that does not make every student a fan.

Participants in the color war risk getting powder thrown straight into their faces — including their eyes and throat. Sophomore AC Hensarling (Holly Hensarling’s daughter) experienced this last Derby Day.

“I got [the powder] down my throat last year. I threw up,” she said.

The colored powder is also notorious for staining skin and hair.

“I was stained [red] for like, a week,” AC Hensarling said. “I get [food is] nasty, but it’s easier to get out than powder…It’s not like that’s going to stay in your hair.”

Senior Brooks May thinks the timing of Derby Day this year, right before Memphis University School’s homecoming, was also inconvenient for some students.

“A lot of people had Homecoming the day after, even the same day as Derby Day,” she said. “They had to take a shower and try to scrub it all [off].”

Senior Sophie Baker, whose freshman Derby Day took place before the switch to colored powder, misses the old way.

“It’s not as fun [with powder],” she said. “I think it was more directed [when we used food].”

Looking back, she sees the food fight as a rite of passage for underclassmen.

“It’s just getting you ready for high school,” she said. “Being an underclassman, that’s just something you have to go through.”

On the other hand, there are perks to using powder instead of food. Upper School counselor Amy Poag enjoys the colored powder for its stunning visuals.

“[It makes] an absolutely beautiful picture,” she said. “It’s fun to see how happy everyone looks with all the colors floating around.”

“[This year], instead of decorating the commons, we changed it to bleacher decorating because we thought that would be more fun [and] easier for everyone to see and participate in,” she said.

Another activity that the Student Council adjusted was the color war.

“Last year it was just an all-out powder war,” Dyer said. “We changed it to where the sophomores and freshmen would run through the juniors and the seniors, and then once they got to the end, they would have their own powder that they can then come back and throw it at the juniors and seniors.”

Dyer believes that Derby Day lets each grade come together as a whole, something they do not normally get to do during the school day.

“My favorite thing about Derby Day is the way the grades come together and get to actually do a bunch of stuff as a class,” she said. “I feel like during the day, we’re so separated [because we are] going to different classes and stuff, so the way they get to come together as a grade is really important.”

Holly Hensarling reminds students that even though it comes with risks, at the end of the day, it is up to them to make rational choices about how they choose to participate in Derby Day.

“[We’re] not forcing anybody to do this,” she said. “People can kind of pick and choose the events that they want to do that they feel comfortable with.”

Additionally, participants are encouraged to take protective measures during the color war.

“Kids can wear goggles…They can choose to do things that would protect them,” she said. “They can also choose which events that they do.”

Anyone who has feedback on how Derby Day went this year can fill out an anonymous survey from Holly Hensarling to share their thoughts.

“Derby Day is important, and Derby Day is a huge tradition that we want to keep,” she said. “I’m more than welcome to any suggestions to make it better,” she said.