President Donald Trump, the current 47th president of the United States of America declared that he will host the Patriot Games as a celebration of the country’s 250th birthday during fall of 2026 on Dec. 18, 2025. Trump emphasized that this event will showcase American excellence, discipline, teamwork and national pride.
The event will last 4 days, where a high-ranking female and male compete in high school athletics. The process of selecting the players for this event is that Trump will be choosing an athlete from each state for various sports which will determine who gets to compete. If the athletes win, they will be rewarded with prizes such as money and a boost in the professional pathway. Athletes from many different schools, including Walnut High, have shared their opinion in the recent news about the Patriot Games.
“It’s very dystopic and I feel like it has no value,” varsity tennis player junior Stefania Liu said. “These games won’t define who’s the best, but it will feel like any regular competition going against other high schoolers.”
Sports that are co-ed such as wrestling relate to how these games function as they consist of both females and males in the sport. Since wrestling is a co-ed sport, this can shape the student athletes mindset about having more competition and challenging themselves.
“In wrestling, I feel like the sport is very co-ed because the girls and boys are a team together,” varsity wrestling player freshman Zander Roger said. “Testing your level and going against other states [in the Patriot Games] will gain a lot of experience, growth and new competition that I might not have experienced before.”
In more gender-suppressed sports like tennis, levels of competition are different. With the boys league, they are competing in the D1 level. With the addition of Patriot Games, there will be lots of advantages of money and professional boosts in the students when they win the event.
“In tennis, it’s known that there is a separation between genders regarding skill level,” varsity tennis player junior Brad Wong said. “With money or prizes being the reward, players start to become more knowledgeable in their future aspirations and it would be good to fund their professional careers.”
There are a lot of unanswered questions when it comes to the Patriot Games. Trump has just announced this celebration event which has everyone asking questions like how, what, and why. There are a lot of unanswered questions regarding the event which makes people curious how this would look like in the future.
“My role is to teach basketball, the values of sportsmanship and hard work, I don’t see how they’re going to get the best to compete because there would have to be some kind of process to figure out what the criteria is,” girls’ basketball Coach James said. “I don’t know if you’d have enough events where you would be able to determine an athletes’ skill.”
![Senior Kyle Lin scrolls through his Spotify playlist to prepare mentally for practice. "[Music] helps me get to a good vibe or mood and it helps me prepare mentally for my race or just practice," Lin said.](https://whshoofprint.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/IMG_9092-e1777086977174-800x1200.jpg)
