On Friday, April 24, senior Emilie Garcia crept to the edge of her garage. She had already sent her brother out to scout the driveway minutes before, but she knew that there was still the risk of exposing herself in the open stretch between her house and her car. Taking a deep breath, she prepared herself for the worst, stepped across the garage into her driveway—then immediately began to sprint.
As she made a mad dash to her car, she thought she saw a blur in her backyard—a flash of motion, a streak of color. But before she could consider who or what it might be, she flung open her car door and slid inside.
She was safe. Momentarily, at least.
Garcia had just gotten her first taste of “Water Wars”: a version of senior assassin where groups of students attempt to eliminate other teams by shooting them with water guns in order to advance in the competition and eventually compete to win a prize pot of money. While Brighton High School’s administration has made it very clear that the game is unsanctioned and is in no way affiliated with the district, the recurring tradition has become increasingly ingrained into the student body.
Like many other seniors, Garcia wanted to participate not necessarily just for the cash prize but for the memorable nature of the game.
“I thought it would be a fun activity to do with my friends and [a] fun little senior memory to end the year off with,” Garcia said.
However, Water Wars wasn’t fun and games for everyone. Nearly from the moment it started on April 24, disputes began to emerge. The brunt of the criticism wasn’t placed on the participants themselves but the so-called “water masters.” Requiring an outside body to manage the money, keep track of the teams, affirm the “kills” and ensure the rules are followed, Water Wars has for several years been managed by a group of juniors from the Leadership class. While the connection is unofficial, junior Claire Myers said the expectation from the beginning was that she and the four other juniors in Leadership would run it.
“We were told that no one else would take this responsibility if we did not; besides, we figured it would be easier with five juniors running it rather than the usual two,” Myers said.
Myers’s assumption proved to be wrong. The “water masters” quickly found themselves juggling the responsibility of judging whether or not certain behaviors and “kills” were valid, and perceived inconsistencies in their decisions soon provoked hostility among some of the participating seniors.
“The rules were relatively ambiguous, and we divided the job of responding to teams and confirming their ‘kills.’ So, each of the water masters would tell each team a slightly different version of the rules based on what the individual water master thought, and that caused much chaos,” Myers said. “The teams thought we were favoring certain teams by enforcing some rules more strictly on one team than another—in reality, it was simply an effect of miscommunication.”
With many seniors bitter about these decisions, Myers and the other juniors soon found themselves the subjects of verbal and online harassment. One junior was confronted at lunch and faced accusations of being immature and biased, forcing administrators to intervene. Another “water master,” junior Samantha Burns, said that she faced a hostile interaction with a parent.
Along with the tensions between the seniors and “water masters,” disputes among the teams have occurred as well. Some participants were eliminated for engaging in inappropriate behavior, such as placing trackers in cars or entering other people’s houses without permission. Despite only lasting in the game for 24 hours, senior Zoe Vermiglio-Smetanka said she still witnessed several issues, including some involving breaches of privacy, and they contributed to her now negative attitude towards Water Wars.
“I would not do it again. I completely wasted my $10,” she said.
It’s not just BHS that has faced issues involving Water Wars. A recent incident at Davison Community Schools in Genesee County involved a police officer nearly shooting a student participating in the game after receiving reports about suspicious activity. Other concerns have arisen regarding the type of water guns students use—police and school officials typically advise students to use brightly-colored water guns if they wish to participate, as black or darkly-colored ones could be mistaken as real guns.
Mr. Nathan Grabowski, principal for the class of 2026, said that he is “very strongly” in favor of abolishing Water Wars.
“It is totally unsafe, students hiding in and around cars, driving recklessly and sneaking in and around homes,” Grabowski said. “I would want Water Wars to go away completely because there are other options out there that could be safe and regulated more closely.”
However, the unsanctioned nature of the game that administrators like Grabowski strive to emphasize is exactly what makes it difficult to eliminate—the school has no authority whatsoever to regulate what students choose to do outside of school hours. According to Burns, even administrators’ ability to intervene in the harassment the juniors faced was limited because they had no power to control the event itself.
“Although Water Wars is somewhat of a tradition, it is draining and unfair to place sole responsibility on a group of juniors who will be harassed online and in person,” Burns said.
However, the reality is that no direct responsibility is actually placed onto these students, and the fact that Leadership juniors are expected to run the event is perhaps a reflection of how ingrained an officially unsanctioned event has become with BHS. Garcia said that she believes Water Wars should be “less intertwined with the school” in the future, and Vermiglio-Smetanka agreed that there needs to be some structural changes.
“I think the first mistake is having juniors run it. It’s a senior event. It should be run by someone who is not playing who is a senior, or if they do run it from a junior, don’t make it so the junior has to do all of it,” Vermiglio-Smetanka said.
Vermiglio-Smetanka and fellow senior Holly Heckel both proposed additional changes to address some of the issues that arose with Water Wars this year. Vermiglio-Smetanka said that she thought the organizers should spend more time planning ahead to avoid some of the issues that arose with the large number of teams and pairings, while Heckel disagreed with the scoring system this year.
Despite some of the issues that arose, though, many seniors remain in support of keeping Water Wars as an annual tradition. Heckel said that she “absolutely would do it again” if given the opportunity, and Garcia said that her team “did have a lot of fun while it lasted.” Even Grabowski acknowledged that he “would have absolutely loved Water Wars” if he had had the chance to compete in high school. To him, it’s about finding a middle ground between fun and safety.
“Water Wars is a dichotomy for me, personally…. I just want to avoid any potential disasters or dangerous situations, as safety is my number-one priority,” Grabowski said.
