A cloudy and windy Saturday afternoon was brightened up by 12 groups of students in colorful shirts competing in a flag football tournament. The philanthropy was organized by Sigma Phi Epsilon to raise money for YouthAIDS.
Competing in girls and guys divisions, participants got an opportunity to prove who are the fittest and fastest among them all.
“Mostly all Greek groups participated,” said senior Devon Walker, the VP of communication of Sig Ep. “Sigma Chi was the only group that did not show up.”
Each team also had two people playing on a root beer pong team.
“This is the second year of the event. We improved our fundrasing effort by getting money from ICC to put on the event. We raised several thousand dollars in donations, a 250 percent increase from last year in donations collected for YouthAIDS.”
“The girls division got pretty intense they showed some real athleticism,” Walker said.
Pi Phi and Alpha Phi were the winners of the girls tournament, while Alpha Tau Omega became the champions of the guys division.
The participants could sign up for the tournament for $75 per team and $2 to participate in the root beer pong afterward. The event was free for visitors allowing for fans to cheer on the sidelines.
“We were grilling hotdogs and hamburgers and were selling water and soda at the event.
“The most unique part of the event was the idea of handicaps,” Walker said. “The fans, observing teams or competing teams could buy certain handicaps to impede the other team.”
Participants could put a blindfold on one of the players for $100, taping tennis balls to the hands of a player for $20. Everything depended on the imagination of the participants.
“Everyone was coming up with various gags, like giving ridiculous clown shoes, forcing to play various masks and costumes, ski goggles, bibs, tie two players together with a rope,” Walker said.
“I think the event was a great success,” Walker said. “It definitely was fun for all participants. Next year I think we might call stricter rules as it is no contact.”
Now that the philanthropy has happened, the chapter is getting ready to prepare for two major events, one of which will be the chapter’s 15-year anniversary in the spring.
“As for the fraternity as a whole, in the spring we do our annual blood drive and are working on several projects,” Walker said, “Our application to get the residential learning community distinction from our national chapter, which is given only to chapters with accredited faculty fellows and programming focused on learning and pairing with higher education.”
