Food, music, volleyball at annual Mane Event (Photo by John Schreiber, The Daily Campus)
Mane Event 2006 “On the Boardwalk” welcomed SMU students, faculty and alumni to the new additions of the Dedman Center for Lifetime sports Tuesday afternoon from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Mane Event, Student Foundation’s annual end-of-the-semester party, offered a variety of activities including readings from psychics, caricatures, a water slide, an obstacle course, a dunk tank, a Mustang Gladiator’s competition as well as the newly added potty racers, small racers that resemble toilets.
Free food was catered by Chipotle, Pizza Patron, Spring Creek BBQ and Sonny Bryan’s BBQ while Student Foundations staffers served up Sno Cones, cotton candy, soda and popcorn.
“There’s food and activities for everyone,” said Zach Laucis, Student Foundation campus events vice-chair. “There’s everything from blow-up activities to bands and it’s all free.”
And while everything was free, some students walked way with money in their pockets as Mane Event hosted its first annual battle of the bands, where bands competed for the $500 cash prize from 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. Participating bands included Andrew McKinney, Blue Cosmo, Red Letter Holiday, The Off Button and this year’s battle of the bands winner, Sometimes It Rains.
Yet, battle of the bands was not the only competition to heat up Mane Event. Student Foundation offered a $300 cash prize to the student organization with the best designed booth. PATHS was the unanimous winner with its gypsy-inspired booth complete with palm reader.
Still most students seemed to be most interested in one competition: volleyball. The tournament took place at the Dedman Center’s two new sand volleyball courts, as 12 teams including fraternities, sororities, residence halls, student groups and even a staff team competed for the $200 cash prize offered by Student Foundation.
The prize eventually went to the Boaz residence hall team “God’s Gift to Volleyball,” headed by RA Dave Matthews.
“The volleyball tournament was awesome! They should have it every year from now on,” said junior Casey Ferrand. Despite its popularity, the tournament still has some problems to work on including ways to make it more evenly balanced between the sexes.
“Different brackets are needed for males and females. It’s extremely unfair to girls in every which way,” said Ferrand, whose sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha team was scheduled to play the fraternity Pi Kappa Alpha.
And while most students, like Ferrand, seemed to enjoy the volleyball tournament, others had a more cynical approach. “The volleyball tournament is a great opportunity for all of the vain people at SMU to take their shirts off for all the other people at SMU,” said junior Doug Hill. The tournament may be here to stay according to Student Foundation President Emily Wilson. “I definitely think we will bring the tournament back next year because it attracted a whole group of people that wouldn’t normally support Mane Event solely because of the volleyball competition,” said Wilson.
