Dodgeball costs $12,000

The tournament began in 2005 as a collaborative project between the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students and two students, Freddy Flaxman ’07 and John Boscia ’07. The pair of students founded Jadwin Jungle, the precursor to Tiger Universe, a University program that encourages attendance at athletic events.

“They were interested in high-energy, fun activities which would draw a majority of the campus community,” Associate Dean of Undergraduate Students Thomas Dunne said in an email.

In 2007, Colosseum Club founder Steve Slovenski ’09 helped Flaxman and Boscia run the tournament, and the Club has organized the tournament ever since. The dodgeball tournament is now the Colosseum Club’s largest and most popular event of the year, current Club president, and Steve’s younger brother, David Slovenski ’13 said in an email.

Teams are divided into four different brackets based on the size of the organizations involved — small, medium, large and huge. At the end of the night, the winners of each bracket play one another to determine the overall winner. Each bracket winner is awarded $500, while the overall tournament winner and runner-up receive $1,000 and $750, respectively. Dunne said that the cash prizes sparked interest among students in the tournament’s early days.

This year’s tournament has cost the University over $12,000, according to emails from Dunne and John McNamara ’14, a member of the Alcohol Initiative Committee, which cosponsors the event. Of the $12,000 in funding, $7,500 comes from the Alcohol Initiative, $2,500 from ODUS and $2,167.50 from the Projects Board. P-Boards, though it operates individually, is a subsidiary of the USG and needs USG approval for potential grants of over $1,000. USG President Bruce Easop ’13 said in an email the USG approved the funding but was not involved in planning the event itself.

Though the tournament is partially funded by the Alcohol Initiative, which funds events that offer alternatives to weekend events associated with high alcohol consumption, David Slovenski acknowledged that participants often drink alcohol before participating in the tournament. Even so, he said, the tournament encourages safer drinking as students moderate the amount of alcohol they consume in order to perform better in the tournament.

“The mission of the dodgeball tournament is not to stop drinking ... [but] to bring the campus together for a night of good, clean fun,” he said. “Exercise, hydration, free T-shirts and pizza greatly reduce the dangerous effects of alcohol and are all readily available at the tournament,” he explained.

McNamara, too, noted that the Alcohol Initiative could not hope to control students’ behavior before and after the event. However, he said that it can and does provide an alcohol-free environment for all students to enjoy and also “shifts much of the social life on campus from other venues that promote high-risk drinking on a typically heavy party night.”

Regardless of whether the tournament reduces drinking, it has become a fixture on many University students’ calendars.

“It’s one of those great moments where a huge cross-section of the campus converges,” Dunne said. “Freddy and John should come back and see their little late-night inspiration thriving as a great campus-wide event.”

Correction: Due to a reporting error, a previous version of this article misstated the name of the University program that preceded Tiger Universe. It was Jadwin Jungle. The 'Prince' regrets the error.