Let the Greek Games Commence!

Posted on April 23, 2013 by Robert

Monday around 4:30, the opening ceremonies for Greek Week were held on the ANW quad. Each year this tradition serves to commemorate the spirit of interfraternal togetherness and competition. Monday was simple field games like tug-of-war, water bucket relay, hoola-hoop passing, and a crazy relay where one person spins around a bat the runs to a chair and is fed a number of gross things.

Since it was boys against boys and girls against girls, Alpha Sig’s only two competitors were Phi Kappa Sigma and Alpha Gamma Tau (mostly known as the bachelors). I was surprised, since most of the bachelors are football players are football players and since most of the Phi Kapps have played highly physical sports that we did really well. We won the tug-of-war competition, the hoola-hoop passing competition, the sack race, the wheel barrow race and number of others.

If that wasn’t enough excitement, today was swimming events. At 7 all of the greek organizations gathered in the pool for a number of…interesting challenges. The first two were your typical biggest and smallest splash contests which we placed second and first in respectively. I was lucky that none of the Phi Kapps had anyone as skinny as me for the smallest splash contest. Then the events went on to include a race to gather rings off the bottom of the pool, a regular relay, crocodile wrestling, and even an animal noises challenge.

It has been a lot of fun and Alpha Sig will go into the track and field games of tomorrow leading by ten points and it’s truly an exciting time. Reasons like this are why college can be so much fun. Sure I’ve had to put a few assignments aside to make time for it, but it’s worth it. Who needs sleep anyway?

Avoiding the muffin top

Posted on February 6, 2013 by Amber Slater

Now that we’re getting into the second week of school, I’ve already noticed a significant drop in numbers at the gym. Resolutions fade, the wind is blowing, and bed is warm. I get it.

In order to combat my natural urge to hibernate starting around Thanksgiving and ending when I can wear short sleeves, I put myself in a position where I absolutely can’t skip working out. For me, this position is the track team. I go because I love my teammates, want to stay in shape for cross country, and know that I will be held accountable if I don’t show up.

There are some people who have the dedication and drive to roll out of bed each morning, do a self-designed work out, and get great results. I admire those people deeply, but I am not one of them. If you’re like me, the key to maintaining fitness lies in finding what you love to do and finding a community of people who share that love.

Besides organized sports teams, you can find this community through intramurals and classes at the gym. Intramurals are offered year round, and I know from running by heated debates on the intramural soccer field that they take it pretty seriously. Additionally, there are all sorts of night classes offered through the gym that can help you add some regularity to your workout schedule. While some staples include Zumba and Body Combat, this semester a kickboxing night class and yoga class will be offered. Such activities require a fee, but it is much less than what you would pay at a typical gym.

Also, let’s not forget gym classes! We are required to participate in four gyms throughout our time at McDaniel, but I have friends that sign up for four per semester. What better way to hold yourself accountable for working out than to work out for a grade, right?

None of us want to watch a muffin top sag over our jeans as the semester unfolds. If you’re in an exercise lull, consider the various ways to get involved with an existing community of people like yourself. When you know that you’re going to see friends and improve your fitness, you have every reason to get out of bed and make that trek to practice, to the gym, or to the field.

Sustainable Volunteering

Posted on February 6, 2013 by Amber Slater

As today was International Pancake Day, my friends and I headed over to IHOP for a short stack of pancakes. Rather than paying the regular fee, guests are encouraged to make donations to Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals after the meal. We entered the building at 10AM, and the walls were already covered with slips of paper that people who had donated money had signed.

Seeing all those signatures made me start thinking about giving back, and how college students can volunteer sustainably. While it’s great to pop into IHOP and donate money, there are a ton of opportunities on campus for regular volunteerism.

Looking for a way to give back to the community regularly? Here are some examples of things you can do on campus:

1. Check out the Center for Experience and Opportunity. They can set you up with local organizations which relate to your interests and career goals. In this sense, volunteering can be not only rewarding emotionally but also a potential line on your resume.

2. Join a Greek organization. Each social fraternity and sorority has a philanthropy element. The fraternity Phi Kappa Sigma, for example, supports the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of America. Additionally, our two service fraternities on campus, Alpha Phi Omega and Gamma Sigma Sigma, focus specifically on community service.

3. Consider joining a sports team. Similar to Greek organizations, each team holds service events for athletes. For example, my cross country team volunteered at a half marathon last semester.

4. Clubs also do community service. If your interest is training service dogs, you can join the Puppy Club and even live in their affinity house. If you’re interested in making a global impact, the Advocacy Team focuses on issues such as global hunger and human trafficking. Involvement fairs at the beginning of each year help students get an idea of the broad range of student organizations our campus houses.

Though our schedules are busy with classes and work, there are tons of opportunities to make a local and global impact, whether through one-time events or extended volunteering through an organization. If you take the time, you’ll find a cause and a project that suits your schedule and interests!

McDaniel does social media

Posted on January 4, 2013 by Annie Brown

When you become a member of the McDaniel community, you’ll quickly learn that McDaniel College has a much bigger presence on social media than you might think. McDaniel has dozens of Facebook pages and Twitters associated with its various departments and organizations.

Here are some of the most interesting:

1. McDaniel College / @McDaniel College

These pages are the official McDaniel College pages. Here you’ll find the College’s biggest news stories and other important or exciting announcements. So much goes on at McDaniel that without the content posted by these pages, there would be so much I didn’t know about McDaniel!

2. McDaniel Free Press / @mcdfreepress

You could say that the Free Press Facebook and Twitter are like a one-stop shop for all of the McDaniel and local news relevant to students. In addition to linking to their own stories, they share stories published by the College and local newspapers such as the Carroll County Times. They also retweet a lot of interesting and important things from other McDaniel Twitters.

3. McDaniel College Department of Campus Safety / @McDanielDoCS

It may seem boring at first to follow Campus Safety on Facebook and Twitter, but these guys use social media quite well. The weather updates and safety tips they post are pretty useful and helps show that Campus Safety really cares about us. Their Facebook page in particular is great because it shows a fun and human side to our Campus Safety officers.

4. McDaniel Athletics / @mcdanielsports

If you like sports, the McDaniel Athletics pages are for you! Get all the latest updates on Green Terror wins and our awesome student athletes! I think all of the individual sports have their own pages too, so if you’re only really interested in following swimming, for example, you’re covered!

5. Roger Casey / @DRROG

Our college president, Dr. Roger Casey, is the only thing on this list that you can’t ‘like’ on Facebook, but he would probably be flattered if you could. Instead, you can subscribe to him or even become his Facebook friend–and I’ve heard that if you become his friend, he’ll post on your wall on your birthday. Dr. Casey, or Dr. Rog as he likes to call himself is a pretty funny guy and he posts some interesting commentary. I definitely enjoy following him!

Badminton

Posted on November 2, 2012 by Annie Brown

I had my last badminton class just a few minutes ago. For the past month, I’ve been taking badminton three mornings a week as part of my Physical Activity and Wellness Requirement for the McDaniel Plan, our guidelines for types of required courses for all students here at McDaniel. The most common way to fulfill this Physical Activity requirement is to take four .5 credit phys. ed. classes throughout their time at McDaniel. (Students can also fulfill the requirement by participating in intercollegiate sports.) Each of these classes lasts for a month, so you’ll only have to go to the class no more than 15 times.

At first, I was nervous about taking badminton in college. I was apprehensive about losing an hour right in the middle of my mornings three days a week that could otherwise be spent doing homework (or sleeping). I was also afraid that the grading system would be harsh and that I wouldn’t do well as a result.

However, though I did indeed have to devote three hours a week to badminton, the class was not hard or harsh at all. Coach Hoyt, the instructor and head coach of our football team, grades very fairly; in fact, most of my grade will come just from showing up and wearing clothes appropriate for exercising.

What I liked about the class was that we didn’t just derp around with birdies and racquets. We actually learned the skills, shots, and rules needed to play real games of badminton, and we all played several 10-minute games during each class meeting.

I was terrible at serving the birdie at first, and I could never serve underhand (the correct way) in high school, but Coach Hoyt helped me one-on-one during the first couple of days of class to fix that. I ended up becoming so good at serving that I could do it well with my left hand in addition to my right (a skill I discovered when a substitute teacher told us to play with our opposite hands for the last five minutes of one of our class meetings). And though I wasn’t always good at game play, I still had a lot of fun.

Another neat thing about class was that I got to know a few people in my English classes and in my major a lot better, which is awesome because I have new people on campus that I like and people who I can turn to if I ever need clarification on an assignment or have to do a group project. Based on this experience, I would recommend avoiding taking gym classes with existing friends, unless you’re really interested in that particular sport.

I really grew to like and be reasonably good at badminton, and I’m going to miss it (though I’ll be happy to get those extra hours back in my week, especially since there’s only a little over a month left in the semester and that’s when things start to get really busy). Luckily, there’s a badminton club on campus that meets one night a week. This semester, they meet the night I have class, but next semester, I think I’ll be sure to make time in my evening to join them!

Intramural Sports

Posted on October 27, 2012 by Kaitlyn Vadenais

McDaniel College is home to 24 Division III athletic sports, all part of the Centennial Conference. But we are also home to 11 intramural sports that I would argue are just as competitive, if not more so.

Several of my friends play on an intramural football team. While they always acted intense about playing time and uniforms for each week, I always took their comments as boys being boys. However, I finally went out to a game this past weekend. They played under the lights and my roommates and I had been promising we’d check it out before the season was over.

I was surprised how how legitimate the game was. Although it was flag football so there was no need for pads or helmets and there was no tackling, the boys all played really intense and followed the rules a lot more closely than I would have guessed.

My roommates and some of the boys are getting a team together for an intramural volleyball tournament on Halloween night. I think that intramural sports are a great way to get active and have fun with friends. And having that intramural champions t-shirt at the end of the season makes you the envy of a lot of people on campus.

There are a lot of intramural sports to check out, including floor hockey, basketball, and softball. So if you’re not ready to commit to a division 3 sport but you’re not ready to give up your high school sports, consider playing intramural and get the best of both worlds.

Intramurals at McDaniel

Posted on September 24, 2012 by Robert

If you love sports but did not make a McDaniel team (or told your parents you didn’t make it just because you didn’t want the hassle) intramurals are a fun, low-commitment way to stay active. Each season has a number of options, each very popular in their respective times. The fall semester has soccer, flag football, golf, and floor hockey, while the spring semester sees basketball, kickball, badminton, kickball, indoor soccer, volleyball, softball, and my personal favorite dodgeball. Though it is just a one day tournament, intramural dodgeball is the most enjoyable of all the intramural sports.

Among my friends, everyone takes turns organizing teams for different intramurals. This increases everyone’s sense of involvement, while also making sure no one has to take on too much responsibility throughout the year. It’s fun also because, generally, the one who chooses to organize is very passionate about the sport and will lead us to victory. My friend Brandon was the excited organizer of our dodgeball team.

My friends and I named our team “Average Joe’s” in honor of the movie dodgeball. Though there was no requirement for team uniforms, my friends and I went to Michael’s and picked up a few ugly green and white striped tank-tops and some black headbands. Between our makeshift uniforms and irrepressible spirit, we were ready for the win. Old Gill Gym had been divided in two by the drop-down nets, and we were immediately thrown into a preliminary match on the far side against one of the best teams. We lost. Horribly. We played another game and won.

The next hour proceeded like this until the eliminations began. We made it to the semi-finals and then lost to the clearly superior team we had dubbed the “Purple Cobras” (in honor of the movie). I remember this intramural fondly because it was a chance for my friends and I to get together and laugh at ourselves.

Stories from the Hill

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