Forty-seven teams with at least six members competed in the 22nd annual Mud Volleyball Tournament on Sunday.
The event was organized by Botsford and Swinford halls and was located at the mud pits near the Johnson B complex.
The DJ kicked off the tournament by playing The Bloodhound Gang's "The Bad Touch." Participants danced and wore matching, eccentric uniforms and body paint.
One group managed to find tie-dyed duct tape.
Senior Julie Middaugh, "Mud Chairer" of the event, volunteered her time by refereeing many of the matches. She was also in charge of organizing and setting up the entire Mud Volleyball Tournament.
"The Mud Chairer is the person in charge of the mud. I run all the meetings and get involved with T-shirt designs and sales. [I] run the committee that decides everything. I basically go wherever I am needed," Middaugh said.Botsford and Swinford halls hold three annual events, including a casino night. The Mud Volleyball Tournament was the first one this year and in the past has had the greatest turnout.
Middaugh put many hours into planning the Mud Volleyball Tournament, she said. Planning began two weeks prior to the end of the 2009 Spring Semester. T-shirts had to be designed and a charity chosen before the committee left for summer break.
Each year, the Mud Volleyball committee members choose a different charity to which it donates the event's proceeds. This year money went to The Boys and Girls Club of Muncie.
"We chose the Boys and Girls Club because mud volleyball is a sport. We thought it would be a great way to give kids the resources needed to participate in events like this also," Middaugh said.
Junior Samantha Tilmans, a player on the Freeloaders, has volunteered at the Boys and Girls Club in the past and said the club has a facility in downtown Muncie that children can go to after school and receive "positive reinforcement, something they can't always find at home."
"The kids are wonderful. The money goes toward buying equipment for the club's facility," Tilmans said.
Freshman Ian Hiatt, captain of the V Crew, learned all about the Boys and Girls Club when attending the mandatory captains' meeting last week. Hiatt said his team did nothing to prepare for the tournament. Rather, the team's consensus was to improvise. After multiple efforts in the thick mud pits, the V Crew could not pull off a win.
"It got pretty gross out there, but we tried to keep our composure and not crumble under the pressure. It just wasn't enough," Hiatt said. "We didn't make it past the first round, but this was our first experience. We will get them next year."
Blood was also common at the tournament, as upturned soil was sprayed continuously with water to create the mud pits; anything in the soil, such as rocks, stayed there.
Players were encouraged to wear high socks and wrap duct tape around their feet and ankles to act as a cushion against sharp rocks.
Sara Ling, captain of the Bakin' Dehos', seemed surprised by how many rocks she felt in the pits. Her team had some trouble adjusting to the mud pits in the beginning. Bakin' Dehos' lost its first game and won its second two.
Despite the rocks, Ling said she was still enthusiastic about her team's effort.
"We love to get down and dirty!" she exclaimed.
The American Red Cross also provided first aid to many of the injured volleyball players. J.B. Bilbrey has been with the Red Cross for 36 years and has aided mud volleyball participants for more than five years.
He said there are usually a lot of minor injuries such as cuts on the bottom of player's feet from the rocks at the tournament.
In previous years, Bilbrey said some tournament participants have broken arms and legs, but no one broke bones this weekend.
"[Saturday] there were a steady number of injuries, most of them on knees. Nothing serious [Sunday]," Bilbrey said.
At the end of the tournament, graduate student Trey Butz, captain of Last Year's Champs, was not going to allow the danger of the mud pits to hold his team back, he said. Last Year's Champs ended up being this year's winning team, taking down Salmon in the championship game.
"My team plays together on a regular basis. We are all experienced volleyball players," Butz said.
Middaugh said the tournament was a success because only one team lost its sportsmanship fee due to unsportsmanlike conduct and the day had no major concerns.
She put in 40 hours of labor the week leading up to the event and said in the end all her hard work paid off.
"It probably doesn't seem like it now, but I am sure tomorrow I will think, 'Yeah, we did a good job,'" she said. "It's one of those things that when you are doing it you think, 'This sucks!' but after it's all over you look back and say, 'Man, that was really fun.'"
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