Winter Floor Wars Challenges Floors to Unite

Dorcas Hall Third and David Hall Southeast Second won both the Instagram challenge and Floor Wars overall in the men’s and women’s divisions, respectively. Photos courtesy of the team Instagram accounts

by Benjamin Middendorf

For the past two weeks, students have been locked in a bitter competition with one another, forcing bonds of friendship and camaraderie in the face of flying projectiles, bitter cold and tricky trivia as they competed in the second annual Winter Floor Wars, organized by the Student Activities Counsel.

“What we really like about Winter Floor Wars is it’s an easy event for floors and our team, and it’s a nice community for the floors themselves to get together,” Director of Student Development Rehema Kavugha said.

Kavugha and SAC worked with Resident Assistants to publicize news about the events and inspire interest.

“Basically, I brought it up to my guys…back in December and quite a few of them were excited,” senior Ryan Maser, RA of Dorcas Hall Third said. “I think it’s just a great opportunity for everyone to get together, the different floors on campus, and get to know a few more people, but also to just have that competition against each other.”

“My hall really likes to be involved in a lot of things,” sophomore Britnee Fear, RA for David Hall Southeast Second said. “So when I told them about Floor Wars, they were immediately interested.”

There were four men’s floors and six women’s floors competing against one another in separate divisions, growing from last year’s seven participating teams.

For the first week, floors had a chance to participate in the Instagram challenge. They were given five prompts and had to post a photo to Instagram of them completing the prompt by Sunday, Feb. 5.

Then on Friday, Feb. 3, the teams competed in a friendly dodgeball tournament, which was won by Ruth B Hall First and Pit and David Hall Southeast First.

“I was sort of involved (last year), but not as much. This year as an RA, I thought it was a really good opportunity to get my hall to do something together, to maybe get to know guys that they hadn’t really hung out with before,” said junior Zach Barz, RA for Ruth B Hall First and Pit.

“It’s been fun to see my guys get excited about it,” Barz said. “At dodgeball the first night, I wasn’t sure how many guys were going to show up, but we had a good number and ended up winning. My guys were high-fiving each other, patting each other on the back.”

Due to a lack of snow for the scheduled sledding event, students instead engaged in a much more up close and personal physical contest on Tuesday, Jan. 7, at a 9 p.m. tug-of-war behind Founders Hall. With limited lighting and temperatures dropping into the low 20s, floors huddled together for warmth, or sheltered in Brommer Hall before gripping the rope with shivering hands when their appointed time came. The men of Ruth B Hall First and Pit were again victorious, and the women of David Hall Southwest Second pulled themselves to a win.

“It’s been fun so far,” sophomore Brennan DeForest of Dorcas Hall Third said at the tug-of-war event. “I got to do fun activities that I haven’t done in a while.”

On Friday, Feb. 10, the floors had a chance to flex their mental muscles. Beginning at 7:30 p.m., SAC organized a six-round trivia night, which was hosted by Director of Career Development Corey Gray. The topics for the rounds were Logos, Sports, Numbers, Bible Couples, Netflix Shows and Name that Tune. Floor participation ranged from around a dozen people to only a few.

After almost an hour of whispered debates among teams and quips from Gray, the winners were revealed to be Phillip Hall First and David Hall Northeast Second.

The winners of the Instagram challenge and the Final Champions were then announced at the Valentine’s Day Dance at 10 p.m. Dorcas Hall Third won for the men and David Hall Southeast Top won for the women in both the Instagram challenge and the whole competition.

The theme for Spring Weekend 2017 was also announced: Mission Concordia, a play on Mission: Impossible.

“I hope (Floor Wars) grows more, because it’s really good for floor bonding and building the communities and teams,” Fear said.

Kavugha also hopes that this event will enhance the freshman experience at Concordia.

“There used to be specifically freshman floor wars that would happen immediately after school started, and it was really hard to just balance in the beginning of the school year with everyone’s schedule. So we’d love for this to be geared especially towards our freshman.”