From this past Sunday to today, Devin and I have been Frisbee-ing, beaching, advil-ing, celebrating, and hanging out with some of the best people we’ve ever met. The Aussies who came to IU in the past years told us that Uni Games was something we had to take part in, and I’m so glad we listened to them. I now have a week full of memories that will forever be irreplaceable or unforgettable. I’m going to try my best to tell you all about my experiences this past week, and while I don’t even know where to begin, I’ll do my best not to leave anything out.
First off, the total amount of time we spent playing Frisbee this week amounted to 720 minutes – nine games in five days. We started off the week with three games on Monday, the first being at 8am and the last being at 3pm. The amount of pain I was in on Tuesday morning as I attempted to get out of bed was insane. Almost every part of my body was sore – my legs, my back, my abs – and it is all because each 80-minute game was filled with explosive sprinting and plenty cutting. The last time I had run as hard as I did this week was junior year track, which was almost four years ago. Needless to say I was a little rust, but pushing myself every day was totally worth it because I gained so much experience from it all. I can tell you one thing for sure though – my legs are loving the day off.
At the end of every day of competition, the one thing I wanted the most was just to sink into my bed and be hand fed because I was that exhausted, however it was Uni Games and sleeping wasn’t really on the agenda. Each night, our team of thirteen would gather in some of the boys’ hotel room to partake in what was called court. Tiff, Brendan, and Chris – three amazing coaches and players who we looked up to all week – helped put together a booklet of information for us to reference all week. Included in each booklet was:
- A list of the rookies and veterans, each with their own made up biographies and nicknames. Mine was “No Worries Mate” and Devin’s was “Father”, which we were told was after a type of whiskey, and we were required to use everyone’s nicknames while court was in session. This became interesting for me because Devin’s name was changed midweek to “Daddy”, so just imagine how that was for me, referring to him as that; of course, everyone loved it.
- Jobs for the rookies of the team. Along with one of the lovely gals on our team, Gabby, her and I were assigned the role of shopaholics. So our role was to shop for the necessary food each day for the field and our team dinner, as well as the necessary boxed wine to help conduct our court sessions.
- Tasks that each person had to complete in the next 24 hours until the next court session. For instance, there were tasks such as “Kleptomaniac” where you had to collect as much stuff as possible while out or “I Think You’re Beautiful”, where you had to greet each new person you talked to with “I think you’re beautiful”.
So needless to say, the booklet didn’t have actually any important information regarding Uni Games itself, but that’s because if it did, it wouldn’t be fun to read.
Another part of court is that we came up with a set of rules we had to follow. There were two in particular that had the specific punishment of immediately dropping and doing ten pushups, plus one for the crowd and they were: 1) Not saying “mine” and 2) Replacing now with “meow”. To give you an idea of how much we were still screwing up by the end of the week, in less than 24 hours, our group had amounted to doing over 300 pushups. Another fun rule implemented by Tiff was she had given us our own army figurines, and every time she blew her whistle we had to strike that pose. Going along with my natural ability of zero luck, I had blindly picked the only helicopter figurine; so here’s another fun situation to imagine: me having to drop what I was doing to twirl around like a helicopter. Are you laughing yet?
Perhaps one of the funniest happenings of the week occurred yesterday, between Devin and another kid named Ollie. Tiff knew this kid pretty well, and had let me know that earlier in the week he had texted her saying “Who’s that super hot American?” referring to me. As a group we decided an appropriate reply would be a picture of Devin in a sexy posse dressed up as Tommy Pickles, complete with a bald cap, diaper, and baby bottle (the theme for the night was Childhood Heroes – I promise Devin doesn’t normally dress like that). We were all in stiches laughing, and we thought that would be the end of it, but it wasn’t. Later in the week Ollie challenged Devin to a arm wrestling contest, saying if he won, he would get to kiss me and if Devin won, then Ollie had to kiss him. Devin accepted the challenge and what was the end result? Devin was kissed by his first boy.
I feel so lucky I was able to be a part of this team and be surrounded by such crazy, amazing people; I know they are all going to be reasons why leaving Australia is going to be so hard. I honestly can’t stop smiling whenever I think of all that went on through the week, whether it was because one of the guys stuffed his shoes with potato tots for breakfast on the road or because of how we were all there for each other through the heat and stress of every game. I was warned that PUGD – Post Uni Games Depression – was a real thing, and I would definitely be a sufferer of it if it wasn’t for the fact MY MOM WILL BE HERE IN THREE DAYS. Anyone who wants to join her is more than welcome to. She leaves Sunday afternoon and I’ll leave it up to you to choose whether to make your arrival be known or a surprise.
I also forgot to mention that we placed 9th out of 22 teams. That’s pretty cool as well.
First off, the total amount of time we spent playing Frisbee this week amounted to 720 minutes – nine games in five days. We started off the week with three games on Monday, the first being at 8am and the last being at 3pm. The amount of pain I was in on Tuesday morning as I attempted to get out of bed was insane. Almost every part of my body was sore – my legs, my back, my abs – and it is all because each 80-minute game was filled with explosive sprinting and plenty cutting. The last time I had run as hard as I did this week was junior year track, which was almost four years ago. Needless to say I was a little rust, but pushing myself every day was totally worth it because I gained so much experience from it all. I can tell you one thing for sure though – my legs are loving the day off.
At the end of every day of competition, the one thing I wanted the most was just to sink into my bed and be hand fed because I was that exhausted, however it was Uni Games and sleeping wasn’t really on the agenda. Each night, our team of thirteen would gather in some of the boys’ hotel room to partake in what was called court. Tiff, Brendan, and Chris – three amazing coaches and players who we looked up to all week – helped put together a booklet of information for us to reference all week. Included in each booklet was:
- A list of the rookies and veterans, each with their own made up biographies and nicknames. Mine was “No Worries Mate” and Devin’s was “Father”, which we were told was after a type of whiskey, and we were required to use everyone’s nicknames while court was in session. This became interesting for me because Devin’s name was changed midweek to “Daddy”, so just imagine how that was for me, referring to him as that; of course, everyone loved it.
- Jobs for the rookies of the team. Along with one of the lovely gals on our team, Gabby, her and I were assigned the role of shopaholics. So our role was to shop for the necessary food each day for the field and our team dinner, as well as the necessary boxed wine to help conduct our court sessions.
- Tasks that each person had to complete in the next 24 hours until the next court session. For instance, there were tasks such as “Kleptomaniac” where you had to collect as much stuff as possible while out or “I Think You’re Beautiful”, where you had to greet each new person you talked to with “I think you’re beautiful”.
So needless to say, the booklet didn’t have actually any important information regarding Uni Games itself, but that’s because if it did, it wouldn’t be fun to read.
Another part of court is that we came up with a set of rules we had to follow. There were two in particular that had the specific punishment of immediately dropping and doing ten pushups, plus one for the crowd and they were: 1) Not saying “mine” and 2) Replacing now with “meow”. To give you an idea of how much we were still screwing up by the end of the week, in less than 24 hours, our group had amounted to doing over 300 pushups. Another fun rule implemented by Tiff was she had given us our own army figurines, and every time she blew her whistle we had to strike that pose. Going along with my natural ability of zero luck, I had blindly picked the only helicopter figurine; so here’s another fun situation to imagine: me having to drop what I was doing to twirl around like a helicopter. Are you laughing yet?
Perhaps one of the funniest happenings of the week occurred yesterday, between Devin and another kid named Ollie. Tiff knew this kid pretty well, and had let me know that earlier in the week he had texted her saying “Who’s that super hot American?” referring to me. As a group we decided an appropriate reply would be a picture of Devin in a sexy posse dressed up as Tommy Pickles, complete with a bald cap, diaper, and baby bottle (the theme for the night was Childhood Heroes – I promise Devin doesn’t normally dress like that). We were all in stiches laughing, and we thought that would be the end of it, but it wasn’t. Later in the week Ollie challenged Devin to a arm wrestling contest, saying if he won, he would get to kiss me and if Devin won, then Ollie had to kiss him. Devin accepted the challenge and what was the end result? Devin was kissed by his first boy.
I feel so lucky I was able to be a part of this team and be surrounded by such crazy, amazing people; I know they are all going to be reasons why leaving Australia is going to be so hard. I honestly can’t stop smiling whenever I think of all that went on through the week, whether it was because one of the guys stuffed his shoes with potato tots for breakfast on the road or because of how we were all there for each other through the heat and stress of every game. I was warned that PUGD – Post Uni Games Depression – was a real thing, and I would definitely be a sufferer of it if it wasn’t for the fact MY MOM WILL BE HERE IN THREE DAYS. Anyone who wants to join her is more than welcome to. She leaves Sunday afternoon and I’ll leave it up to you to choose whether to make your arrival be known or a surprise.
I also forgot to mention that we placed 9th out of 22 teams. That’s pretty cool as well.
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