Monday Night Newsfeed: Mudbowl Preliminaries

For it being only the second Newsfeed of the semester the show is off the a great start! I am very excited to see where the new political segment with Matt Dupree (maybe other;) takes us. It was great to get to hear some opinions on campus about the debates last Thursday. I am also very excited that Caroline from Wednesday night was able to interview Governor Granholm. Go Caroline! You just don't know what is going to be on the show next. Anyways, enough about how hyped I am to see what content our next show has...I guess we will all have to wait and see.

Last Sunday Leslie and I put a package together about the fraternity Sigma Alpha Epslion's annual Mudbowl preliminaries, which they hold in order to raise money for MOTT's children's hospital. Every year they raise on average $20,000 to donate to the hospital. For the past 75 YEARS!! fraternities and sororities on campus have participated in the event batteling it out for their chance to compete in Mudbowl. On Sunday after weeding out the competition two fraternities and two sororities were left to compete in the final competitions. Fraternities Theta Chi and Phi Psi competed this past Tuesday at Burns park for the championship title. Alpha Phi and Tri Delt will compete in the mud Saturday October 4th at SAE during halftime of the Illinios game.

This was the first time that I attended the Mud Bowl prelims. I have to say it was very intense on both sides. A guy was actually carried away on a stretcher, because he broke his ankle. (Of course this happened right after Leslie and I put the camera away so we didn't get the video.) I guess this is to be expected when you are playing without any padding. The game is suppossed to be "two hand touch," but I saw quite a bit of tackling. The SAE referees are there to make sure things don't get out of hand, but I think injurees are inevitable when you have boys in a competition.

There were quite a bit of injuries, but there are also quite a bit of injuries playing IM sports. Monday there was a guy who broke his ankle playing IM Soccer so... I don't want to make it sound like the Mud Bowl prelims are too dangerous, because I don't think that. I think it is great that a fraternity has kept a philanthropy event alive for so long and that it has managed to sustain popularity. Plus, can you complain when they donate $20,000 to help sick children?

I didn't get to see much of the girls competition, but from what I saw they were giving it their all. The girls are coached by members of the fraternities and they have plays and strategies which they use. These girls obviously put in lots of time practicing for a chance to compete at mud bowl. Why?

I asked the Vice President of SAE what the winner received. He said they usually held a party with the winner... I am assuming that this is not the motivation for the sororities to duke it out. I think it is more about telling everyone that they won at mud bowl and simply about the title. Or is it about being able to take out some frustration physically on another sorority girl?

I will be posting our package on the website so you can see the action for yourself.