Ball State University seniors Maggie Stutesman and Allison Griner came prepared to win Touch the Tower.
Clad with sweatshirts and blankets in case the competition stretched into the night, Stutesman said winning something for her residence hall - Studebaker West - would be easy.
"We're best friends, so we're connected at the hip anyway," Stutesman said. "We wanted to bring a cooler with drinks and snacks too, but we didn't have enough time."
Twenty-four other teams of two balanced on one leg for three minutes, swapped shoes with their partners and opened Starbursts - all while keeping one hand on Shafer Tower - as part of Homecoming Week's newest event.
The event was over in about an hour.
Judges decided winners by the team that touched Shafer Tower longest. Teams that failed to continuously link hands with each other were eliminated.
Event Chairwoman Taylor Strasser said the idea for the event was nothing new.
"We actually adapted the idea [for Touch the Tower] from a different university that played it with their monument," she said. "We decided to use Shafer Tower because it's well-known at Ball State."
The committee was looking for fresh ideas, and Touch the Tower presented itself as a new opportunity for more students to get involved, event chairwoman Samantha Adamczewski said.
"We tried to fit it in last year, but the idea came up too late and there wasn't room in the schedule," she said. "But this year we decided to run with it and see what we could do with it."
Plans originally called for more stunts, but because many teams registered, dribbling basketballs and taking off sweatshirts had to be cut out.
The physical challenges had to be something for which the competitors did not need materials, such as balancing on one leg and answering Ball State-themed trivia, she said.
"There wasn't enough room inside the tower for all the teams to dribble basketballs with one hand safely," Adamczewski said. "I was amazed at how many people came out."
Because Touch the Tower was an event no one had heard of prior to this year's Homecoming, those who signed up weren't sure what they were getting themselves into.
"I don't really know what to expect. It's a new thing, and I wanted to check it out and see what happens," senior Amanda Burge said.
Burge wanted to participate in as many Homecoming events as possible and was up for anything with the competition, she said.
"I just took it as it was," she said.
Delta Sigma Phi fraternity members Sean Kennedy and Aaron Murray won the competition, answering correctly what year Air Jam originated (1987).
When asked how it felt to win the first ever Touch the Tower, Kennedy responded with just one word: "Sweaty," he said.
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