If you happened to drive by Cadet Field last Friday, you may have noticed something strange. On Friday, Sept 10 the Student Activities Board (SAB) hosted a mobile Ninja-Nation obstacle course for the very first time.
Based on the success of the popular TV competition, American Ninja Warrior, companies throughout the country have sprung up promoting the sport of obstacle course running. Beyond the main event, there were also freshly grilled hot dogs, cold water and cola, lawn games, mini-escape rooms and t-shirt tie-dying stations.
“It’s just amazing, honestly, especially after last year. We didn’t have an event like this, we didn’t have a lot of [the] events that we’re [now] having. You can tell, everybody is just super excited to be outside and together,” said sophomore student ambassador Katie Mink.
Although the afternoon was a bit overcast and breezy, that didn’t stop many students from coming to explore the event. During the time that I was there, there were at least 100 students on the field, many mingling or enjoying the free food.
While free chips and pop might be a draw for many a broke college student, clearly the major draw was the opportunity to test their mettle against the obstacle course itself. Starting off with a series of uneven side-step boards, runners then had to launch off of a wobbly trampoline, scale a rope wall, run across a rotating balance beam, navigate spinning platforms and tough-out the free moving monkey bars before finally taking a shot at free climbing the 10 foot wall or perhaps even its more imposing twin, the 12 foot warped wall.
“The object is to never give up. These obstacles were designed for all ages, five to ninety-five. Our job is to encourage success in everybody,” said course operator Micheal Grove.
Indeed, because the course was free to explore, not only students, but children as well joined the line to test out their parkour skills. The emphasis on endurance was not lost on the crowd, with many (myself included) running the course multiple times.
Even if they didn’t have a chance to run the course themselves, many spectators gathered to enjoy watching others making attempts. Some approached the course with bravado, only to become quickly tangled up in the netting, while others seemed to sail through the obstacles despite wearing jeans and beanies. Regardless of their success or failure, every runner I observed left the course smiling.
“[My favorite event] has been the warrior course, it’s been fun to watch. I’ve seen quite a few people get up the warp wall, so that’s been cool,” said Mink.
“My favorite thing has been watching the people on the ninja course, just tackling the wall and having fun with it. Seeing people have fun means we did our jobs,” said SAB Bengal Pride officer Sierra Gibbons. “We were looking for something big that [hadn’t been] done before, so we found a ninja-nation course, a mobile one. [We wanted] people to have some fun and compete.”
With COVID-19 concerns ever present, the SAB has had to find a balance between offering up the unique experiences college is supposed to offer, while simultaneously trying to prevent transmission and infection. Many of the year’s past and upcoming events have had to take place outdoors so as to limit students congregating in close proximity. However, that has not prevented the SAB from putting together several sorely missed events. With “Conquer Cadet” a clear success, the SAB already has its sights set on the next big target.
“Homecoming is a week away, it starts the 20th of September, and it’s going to be a week full of fun events. We have a barbeque, there’s bingo, the bonfire, we have a cowboy carnival which is something we haven’t done before, there will be a mechanical bull, there will be something every single day for students to do,” said Gibbons.
If anything, “Conquer Cadet” was a microcosm of the issues facing students this year. While the pandemic continues to rage, how do we balance between staying safe, having fun and recovering from more than 12 months of isolation and loss? How do we keep moving forward despite the growing, or at times overwhelming, challenges ahead?
“You can’t start unless you begin, you have to try, you have to go for it, and it just takes that one first step, the side-steps,” said Grove.
