Going for the Gold: Office Olympics

Meghan O'Brien, Senior Reporter

In honor of Student Appreciation Week, Hamline’s Human Resources held the sixth annual Office Olympics on Thursday, April 16. During convo hour, ten teams gathered in Walker Fieldhouse to battle in hopes of winning the championship.

Student worker Sarah Sheven (‘15) says that Student Appreciation Week is a great opportunity to show student workers across campus how much they are appreciated, and Office Olympics is one way Human Resources does so.

Junior Charlie Shafer kicked off the games by running the torch through the hall and into the middle of the court. The teams then gathered in the middle of the gym to hear the rules of the games. They played three games, trying to get as many points as possible to win the event. A total of ten teams assembled, each with six players. All teams were comprised of student workers from various departments of the university, and self-named.

The first game consisted of all team members balancing pencils on the backs of their hands then catching them after pulling their hand from underneath. They first had to catch one pencil, then two, etc. If they dropped any they would have to pick them up and start from where they left off. Throughout the challenge, the gym buzzed with cheers from the teams as they encouraged their members on as pencils constantly fell from the hands of the competitors. 

In the second game, one member from each team held a bucket on top of his or her head while the other team members threw five balls of paper each into the bucket. After every member of the team threw their five balls into the bucket, the judges counted the number of paper balls in the bucket. The team with the most number of paper balls would win the game. 

The third game consisted of all six team members placing a small wafer cookie on their foreheads and then wiggling it into their mouths. The catch: they couldn’t use their hands. When all six team members had eaten his or her cookie, the team had completed the game. The first team finished, would win the third game. This game ran the longest and garnered the most cheers from the teams, as wafer cookies fell to the ground around the ten chairs.

When the games had been completed, the judges gathered to tally up the points. It was announced that there was a three-way tie between Junkmail, the Guardians of the Event Galaxy and the Accountants. A tiebreaker would decide the champion.

The tiebreaker was a paper airplane-throwing contest. Each member of three teams constructed a paper airplane and then threw it as far as he or she could. The team whose paper airplane flew the farthest won the tiebreaker.

The Accountants were announced the champions of the Office Olympics. Upon their recognition, the team members were rewarded a fake gold medal and T-shirts. The silver and bronze teams were also rewarded with their own fake medals as they gathered around the podium for pictures.

Racey Rodne (‘16) said his favorite part about the Office Olympics was being able to hang out with his coworkers in a super fun environment outside of work.