All University Games bring spirited inter-school competition

Students representing 16 schools campus-wide gathered to showcase their athletic prowess last night at the 15th annual All-University Games. NYU students competed in events including basketball, volleyball and tug of war. The Games were the second event of the Violet 100, a series of NYU events that aim to boost school spirit.

For the first time, students from NYU Abu Dhabi participated in the friendly competition. Students from the Polytechnic Institute of NYU competed for the second year and had a successful night with a first-place in tug of war.

“We’re really honored to be here and this is one of the first real initiatives [where] there are a lot of NYUAD kids involved in an event that involves NYU, and we feel that it’s our responsibility to be part of the NYU community,” said Mohammad Omar, a junior at NYUAD.

The Games also included less conventional options, such as rock-paper-scissors, fooseball and rock climbing. Leon Johnson, a second-year student in the School of Dentistry who placed second last year, shimmied to first place in a limbo competition.
“It’s nice to do something with the rest of the ot-her schools,” Johnson said. “We’re isolated up north with the med school, and we’re always really busy.”

A significant part of the competition was dedicated to boosting school spirit. Each school was asked to contribute a mascot, a banner and T-shirts. The Wagner School of Public Service was a crowd pleaser thanks its slogan, “Swagner. Do Good. Look This Good.” The School of Continuing and Professional Studies won first place with “Old School. We been there, done that. Do it better,” given the older average age of the students.

Dodgeball, the last event of the evening, was met with enthusiasm. The rules were simple: don’t step out of bounds and don’t get hit.

The final game of dodgeball between the undergraduate team from the Stern School of Business and SCPS determined the winner of the All-U Games. Stern undergraduates proved to be victorious in both dodgeball and the All-U Games with 80 points, closely followed by SCPS with 75 points. Third place was awarded to the College of Dentistry with 55 points.

The previous reigning champs, the College of Arts and Science, were only able to place in rock-paper-scissors and passed on the title and trophy to Stern.

Malina Webb, chair of the Student Senators Council and one of the event’s organizers, hopes that future games can take place in both fall and spring semesters.

“At NYU you don’t expect athletics to be on the forefront of everyone’s mind,” she said.

“Tonight we just forget about what’s typical, and we just have fun and we just do it.”