SportsFest, the popular University of Miami competition where the university’s five residential colleges and commuter students face off, was plagued by declining interest this year.
The University Village took home the title for the first time when the games were held last weekend.
Freshman Maggie Dickey, who lives on the seventh floor of Stanford’s Walsh Tower, noticed a lack of commitment even though students were initially excited.
“On my floor, everyone is dropping out of the events they first signed up for,” she said during the competition.
The resident assistant on Dickey’s floor, Ryan Finkelstein, has identified a big change during her three years as an RA.
For one thing, she said, “faculty directors are not allowing certain things.”
Each floor functions as its own team, and typically students choose a team name or humorous mascot to distinguish themselves during SportsFest.
They wear T-shirts with their slogans throughout the games.
“The shirts are always raunchy and inappropriate, and it’s everyone’s favorite part,” Finkelstein said.
But this year, her floor submitted 10 possible SportsFest designs and only one was approved. Finkelstein said the types of T-shirts that were once approved by faculty directors were rejected for this year’s competition.
Students living on the eighth floor of Stanford-Walsh said none of their shirts got approval from Chris Hartnett, director of Residence Life.
One idea they submitted was “The Walsh 8 Potatoes – we’re better baked.” It was quickly denied.
Instead, the floor decided on T-shirts that read “WALSH 8, ALL OF OUR IDEAS GOT REJECTED.”
Freshman Holly French, the SportsFest captain for the ninth floor of Walsh Tower, said her team was far less excited to compete after being similarly turned down.
“We were really looking forward to being ‘The Walsh 9 Farmers – grab your ho and plant your seed,’” French said. “Now that we had to wear a shirt none of us really like or want to wear, SportsFest just does not seem as fun.”
Aside from the lack of coarse T-shirt slogans, there were changes made to the schedule of events.
“This year, we created a new section called Mind Games,” said senior Jaime Ceron, a three-year RA who served on a committee to determine the events played. “There’s rock, paper, scissors, Sudoku, and Connect 4. We also added more team sports and eliminated more individual games.”
The shift did not go over well with all participants.
“We had to beg someone to play rock, paper, scissors,” freshman Lizzie Horn said last weekend. “When we first heard about SportsFest, everyone was pumped. Now that it is actually here, it’s a different story.”