With hip hop music bouncing off the dorm walls and giant inflatable games dotting the Residential Quad lawn, students gathered Sept. 3 for the 8th annual Loyolympics.

In one corner, teams strapped themselves into a purple human foosball set; in the opposite corner, students faced off in the Adrenaline Rush obstacle course.

Some people armed themselves with water guns for water tag, and still others tried their hand at a basketball-dunking contest with bungee cords.

Teams were divided into groups of men and women who competed against other members of their own sex.

Escaping the summer sun under a tent by the Danna Center, student organizer Rosa Asciolla, finance junior, estimated that about 200 students participated in this year’s Loyolympics.

While this number falls short of the attendance levels in past years, there were enough students for seven male teams and six female teams.

“That’s more than half the (residence) halls,” said Jessica Murphy, assistant director of Co-Curricular Programming. “What we want to continue to do next year is get full representation from all the halls.”

While some students, like English literature freshman Kate Smith, knew about the event beforehand, others spontaneously joined when their residence assistants came knocking on their doors just before the event started.

“I know a lot of people who didn’t even know this was going on,” said Smith, who competed for XI, the Honors Floor contingent from Buddig.

With the sun blasting down onto the quad and cups for the water cooler gone fast, the water tag guns were soon aimed outside the tag course onto passing students, as was the hose intended to fill the guns. More than one unsuspecting person found himself dunked from behind with a bucket of water. Students occupied every patch of shade on the quad, and the one request that seemed to pop up the most for next year’s event was more water.

Still, most students stuck it out through the afternoon’s heat and were rewarded at the end of the games with a complimentary barbecue.

The barbecue is a new addition for this year, as are the plaques that will bear the names and photos of the winning teams, Murphy said. The winners this year were 3 South on the men’s side, Candy Girls on the women’s side – although the name Candy Girls isn’t entirely representative of the team, since there was a lone man among the team’s women.

Asciolla was joined by fellow student Brandon Crainer, criminal justice senior, to organize this year’s Loyolympics, which took about a month to plan and $2,000 to execute.

“We’re trying to spend the money better this year,” said Murphy, who noted that corporate sponsorship by Verizon was new this year. Murphy said Co-curricular Activities is trying to program this year’s events more intelligently, with the ultimate goal of being the best student life division in the country.

Crainer, who Murphy said was the “driving force” behind the event, organized the giant inflatables.

“I looked at what we did previous years,” he said, and based this year’s event on past precedent.

Crainer also got the men’s and women’s basketball teams and men’s baseball team to referee the events.

Although Loyolympics is part of the First Year Experience, organizers stress that it’s not confined to freshmen.

While many of the attending students were freshmen, a number of upperclassmen made appearances as well. Asciolla said that while it’s directed toward first-year students, it’s intended for all grade levels and all organizations to come out and support.

Although the final song ended around 4 p.m. – Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing,” punctuated by a few guttural calls of “Yeah!” from the crowd – students hung out on the quad eating barbecue well after the sun slipped over the roof of the Danna Center, and the deflated games lay limp on the quad lawn.

Click here to see photos from Loyolympics.

Catherine Cotton can be reached at [email protected].