4th Annual Hall Olympics: Day 1 and DONE!

Oh, the Hall Olympics...where do I begin. Last week UPG had it's 4th Hall Olympics and it shows some potential. College Hall won this year, BTW. WOOO Freshmen!!! Anywayz, lets get to it!

First, let me say that I love the Hall Olympics. I think most of the events are at least good at their conception and that RSC, and the students involved, just want to put on a fun event.  Now, I have good and bad things to say in addition to some other comments and my opinions for improvement.  Do I have you're attention? No? Well check out these guys after the eating contest....

deliciously luke-warm hotdogs. WHY?

College Hall eating Champs!

Shaw boys fighting for 4th place

the hotdogs fought back

Now I could sit here and complain about cold soggy hotdogs but I’m not going to because I’m a man. BUT! I’ve decided to stay positive-ish and throw out my thoughts on the Hall Olympics.

First up: events.  The eating contest, in my opinion, sucked this year. Why? Not because I could only eat one mystery-dog before I realized I would puke and not because it reminded me of my youth camp counselor, but because hotdogs suck ass.  In the past there were pizza and wing eating contests, two foods that are awesome regardless of temperature.   Hotdogs on the other hand, not so great.

The scavenger hunt might have been cool, I don’t know for sure because I skipped every event after Monday.  But for the sake of avoiding a backtrack, I’ll just say that the weather sucked ass to go running around campus for a scavenger hunt.  I didn’t want to get a cold a few weeks before finals, sorry.  Also, I think a scavenger hunt would be better suited for the beginning of the year or for freshmen during their Welcome Week.  This would get kids to go all over campus and make friends as soon as their parents let them loose at UPG.

Moving on, Tug-of-War. A classic.  I heard there was some BS with teams winning that lost to other teams but I don’t know because I had no interest in getting all muddy and pulling a rope with 5 other people for a building I’m not going to live in next year (most likely).  I’ll explain this in a little bit.

Next up, the Relay Race and Trivia Game.  If I learned anything from CTF it was that running isn’t my “thing” anymore. Ya, I’m supporting a fat and lazy America…sue me.  You’re probably guilty too.  Only 5 people from every building could compete, from what I understand, and my building in particular only had 2 people show up. I’m definitely glad I skipped that one.

Finally we have dodge ball.  I love dodge ball so much all I’ll say is dodge ball. Dodge Ball.

Now for my opinions.

Event times were all over the place but they were usually in the middle of the afternoon between 3 and 5p.m.  Many people have classes then so I feel like that hurts turnouts for residence halls.  Maybe if the the events all happened at the same time every day it would give the event some degree of regularity and people wouldn’t be surprised when events happened earlier or later.  If someone missed an event on Monday then the next day they would still know the next day another event would happen at the same time.  But I guess you can’t pick perfect times for everyone to participate and there are 5 days of events so some others just have to pick up the slack for those who can’t participate.

What are the residence halls that have won the Hall Olympics in the last 4 year? Answer:  The Courts and College Hall. That’s it! ( If I’m not mistaken. Brian, please feel free to correct me here if need be.)

Why? Because they have the most people living in them and the most underclassmen.  I’ve lived in Westmoreland Hall for 2 years now and turnouts are always low for us.  I think it has to do with the number of students who are graduating, playing sports, or not returning to the halls they represent that are the big problems.  If I’m not living in Westmoreland next year, why should I want to win a “special prize” that I’ll never get to enjoy?  If I’m graduating, why should I care about winning some unknown prize?  If there were prizes for individuals for day-to-day participation and awards like MVP and Most Honorable Competitor then I think attendance would go up.  Not announcing the prize and labeling it as “special” makes me think my mom is trying to make a ten-year-old do a task and if he’s a good boy he’ll get a “special surprise” for it.  Why not just tell us what there is to win?  Maybe that would get upper class men to show up.  Athletes have crazy schedules and I get why they blow off the “Mystery Olympics” but maybe that could change.

I chugged almost 3 liters of pop for the Pop Slop and one trooper, Hillary, puked.  She ate 9 hotdogs and chugged pop till she puked.  How she ate 9 I have no idea.  We were DQed and received 0 points.  Only 3 people came out for Westmoreland Hall last Monday.  All that discomfort for nothing.  If anyone else wanted to win they were gunna have to do it without me.  The poor turnnout by my building made me realize that no one cared and without a lot of people many of the events aren't fun...especially if you get your ass kicked.  So I said fuck it, if anyone else wants to compete they can do it without me...I'm not going to waste my time for a lost cause.  Crazy Idea: Make scoring like Quiddich in Harry Potter. Every event is worth 100 points then the Trivia game is worth 1 billion points.  lets award intelligence over eating abilities and physical conditions. Lol, who expected a Harry Potter reference here? I didn't!

SGA is really pushing to make Homecoming a “tradition” at UPG but I think the Hall Olympics is a better example of “UPG doing UPG”.  Like the NFL or the NBA, it took a while for the idea to catch on and develop but they turned in to awesome organizations.  I think the Hall Olympics is a young event that, with some tweeks here and there, could become a lasting tradition that could build memories for our students.

Enough of that sappy crap, here are some guys puking again!

Again....because I could