Educational "madness"

Instead of taking a final for their Recreation Programming class on Friday Nov. 19, 12 students were told by their instructor, Linda Martin Burkholder, to organize some sort of recreational program.

The students came up with the idea of the Midnight Madness Volleyball Tournament, and took charge of everything including the advertising, reserving the gym, budgeting, and providing refreshments.

Burkholder said the idea of having the students come up with a program instead of a final was agreed between her and the students. She felt that a hands-on project would better prepare them to run a program in a professional way later than would a pencil-and-paper way. Many of the students said that organizing an event was more helpful than just taking a test about programming.

Pizza from Domino's and various drinks were available for students participating and watching throughout the night and into the wee hours of Saturday morning. Students responded well to the flyers and emails about the volleyball tournament.

There were a total of 13 teams in the tournament. With so many teams, there had to be four different pools. Each team in its respective pool was guaranteed at least two, possibly three, games in a round robin tournament.

Round robin games were played to 30 points; the top team from each pool then went to the larger bracket to compete for the championship. These games were single-elimination games, played best record out of three games to 21 advances.

A very intense championship game between Get this Partee Started and Team Noon began around 4 a.m. Team Noon won the first game and Get this Partee Started won the second game. It was down to the third game to decide who won the Midnight Madness title. Team Noon ended up winning the third game by only a few points, earning Rec Sports t-shirts and the title of Midnight Madness Champions.

"I was quite satisfied with the outcome of the event. I feel that the students know a lot more now after planning an actual event," said Burkholder.