Ready, set, snooze: Ball State’s bed race to reappear Friday

<p>The Bed Races this year will take place on Oct. 19 down Riverside Ave. The Bed Races is an annual homecoming event where teams race beds on wheels across a 100 yard course. <strong>Rachel Ellis, DN</strong></p>

The Bed Races this year will take place on Oct. 19 down Riverside Ave. The Bed Races is an annual homecoming event where teams race beds on wheels across a 100 yard course. Rachel Ellis, DN

Editor's note: Alex Grieshop is an employee with the McKinley Avenue Agency, which sells ads for The Daily News.

Ball State’s annual bed race returns to Riverside Avenue at noon on Friday as part of the Homecoming festivities.

Teams of five, with four pushing a mattress on wheels and one riding on it, compete for the fastest time in their division. The fastest teams in each division advance to the final race in order to determine the overall winner.

The teams will race two at a time across a 100 yard course on Riverside Avenue starting from Dicks Street, in front of Woodworth Complex, and concluding in front of Emens Auditorium.

Hannah Fluhler, president of the Homecoming Steering Committee said the organization wanted to base the event on Ball State’s centennial year, but also make the Homecoming events different from other centennial events being held throughout the semester. 

This specific tradition, which dates back to 1980, will feature 30 teams across seven divisions: independent male, independent female, fraternity, sorority, residence hall male, residence hall female and faculty staff/alumni. There also will be a prize awarded for the best costume in the male and female categories.

“The theme for the costumes and such is just celebration of the century,” Fluhler said. “Everyone always gets super creative with that. I love it.”

Alex Grieshop, senior advertising major and special events chair in the Homecoming steering committee, said students from the College of Architecture and Planning helped make the trophies that will be handed out to the winners.

Emma Austin, junior public relations major, will be the master of ceremonies for the event, a role she is “really excited” to be undertaking. In her role, Austin will interact with audience members and ask them trivia questions for a chance to win Domino’s Pizza gift cards.

“Some of the questions are kind of hard,” Grieshop said. “You got to know some Ball State history for them.”

Grieshop also said Muncie’s WLBC-FM radio station will be present and broadcasting the event live.

“It is like, a very Ball State thing that we race beds down the campus,” Grieshop said, noting that students from other universities find the event surprising and strange. “That’s Ball State for you.”

The tradition began when students welded wheels onto bed frames from nearby fraternity houses and ran them down the streets. Now, the university has its own welding shop that makes beds for the participants. 

“I just love, like, the energy of the event, and it is kind of like a silly tradition. So, I just love celebrating that about our homecoming week,” Fluhler said.for.

Contact Rohith Rao with comments at rprao@bsu.edu or on Twitter @RaoReports. 

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