Hey, wait! If you haven’t read the first part – than you should check it out right away! You don’t have to go anywhere – it’s right here!
College students faced with the words ‘Exam Week’ often exert an astonishing amount of creative energy entirely unrelated to their studies. Intense academic pressure minus classes equals a torrent of silliness and novel ways of letting off steam.
Other creative activities are the result of the ‘retort’ effect of a mass of brilliant kids thrown together in overheated dorms and laboratories. An earlier article examined some of these sports, games, and pastimes. Let’s continue our examination of intramural silliness with a few more off-the-wall collegiate sports and activities
Luther University, IA – Black light Volleyball
In a fully darkened play space, white-shirted players compete with glow-in-the-dark volleyballs under ultraviolet lights. Just visualizing this generates a giggle. Although not mentioned in Luther University’s website, the possibilities for audience snuggling sound encouraging. With all the surprise features of laser tag, minus the expense and specialized equipment, this fun sport is spreading.
Middlebury College, VT – Muggle Quidditch
Sadly, this sport does not involve actual flying broomsticks. However, this rough, high-speed game does have three types of balls, three player positions, hoops, and a neutral player known as “the Snitch” who runs around the field being pursued by “Seekers”.
To reproduce the aerial and unfettered scope and feeling of the Hogwart’s wizard sport, the Snitch” actually is allowed to run far outside the field of play. Muggle Quidditch is also played at Emerson, Boston University, and University of Pittsburgh. Given the popularity of the Harry Potter movie series, it will likely spread throughout the Muggle world. With some assiduous effort, perhaps some clever science students can get it airborne soon.
Algoma University in Canada – Indoor Cricket
While information on this sport is a bit scarce, the visual image evoked by combining these two words; indoor and cricket, is quite funny enough. The leisurely greensward game of British aristocracy, often requiring more than one day, and interrupted by lunch and a hearty and lengthy tea break, is eccentric to begin with. The sport is now beloved by former Commonwealth nations, is played by these exchange students outside the dorms at Penn, for example. To stage this quintessentially grass-based game indoors, as Algoma does, is to elevate it to sublime silliness.
Bennington College, VT – Whiffle ball, Laser Tag
This small New England college is rumored to have been the model for a novel in which brilliant Classics majors re-enact the violent rituals and madness of the ancient Eleusian mysteries, with deadly results. At any random moment, one can find view students practicing modern dance or practicing drama on the lush green at the center of Bennington’s campus. Thus, it is not surprising to find that Bennington students have a Zombie Defense group, and a club dedicated to creating secret societies and rituals. In comparison, Whiffle Ball and Laser Tag (think paintball played in the dark with a laser gun and a target on one’s own chest) seem tame, but undeniably fun.
The University of California at Irvine – Medieval Combat
These genial eccentrics use foam swords and other weapons to cudgel, slash, and otherwise overwhelm their opponents.
The sport is more than mere mayhem – they learn serious medieval battle tactics in the process. Irvine’s club teaches ancient military formations, more suited for storming an Arthurian castle than sinking a submarine or remotely bombing a distant target.
The group, known as SWORD, also trains all participants in the proper use of large foam weapons. This seems like a critical and dangerously overlooked life skill.
Many places – Inventing stuff – These activities generate all the competitiveness of true sport, with no reward beyond intellectual glory. Additionally, they all require substantial physical effort. The rest of the list is just for fun, these sports were also nominated for the top 10 
MIT – Concrete canoe
This widespread competition is beloved at MIT. Wooden canoes serve as the armature for a fiberglass and paper clip cast and wooden frame. Concrete mixture, carefully tested for its performance characteristics, is poured into the mold. The resulting vessel evokes those ads in the back of comic books (‘Wouldn’t you like to pour a concrete planter?’). The proud craft challenges its buoyancy and resistance to wave action in the MIT Moat. The navies of the world watch with interest.
University of Michigan – Solar car
This is a passionately pursued goal, with teams from colleges such as Michigan and Penn devoting months to the creation, testing, and endurance racing of bizarrely shaped, totally solar powered vehicles. The designs tend towards the long and narrow with wings to capture the sunlight. Drivers need a jockey’s size and shape.
Carnegie Mellon – Robotic car
DARPA sponsors a competition to develop an entirely autonomous vehicle, combining sensing equipment, processing of environmental data, and steering. The military, we are certain, watches this massive investment of effort with care.
All such activities burn off excess energy and ventilate accumulated anxiety. The creativity of students in wasting time is apparently endless. Keep your eyes and ears open for other goofy intramurals!
