For a two week period students will look nervously over their shoulders, hide out in their rooms and climb through windows to get in and out of buildings. What could possibly cause so much paranoia and anxiety around campus? It’s a little game involving spoons and a target, known affectionately as the “spoon game.”
The spoon game has been hosted by Baptist Collegiate Ministries (BCM) each year since around 2004 as a fundraiser, and the money that is raised through the competition is donated to “Send Me Now” missions through the Georgia Baptist Convention to aid students going on evangelistic and service-related trips.
In short, the competition “combines a fundraiser with a fun activity,” said campus minister, David Roland.
The spoon game is essentially a large game of tag that runs from November 3 through November 14, 2014. After paying an admissions fee of $2, each player receives a photo of another player (his or her “target”) and a spoon that is used to tag the other player. Once a player tags their opponent, that player must give the “tagger” his or her target’s photo and the game continues until only one player is left untagged. This last remaining contestant is then declared the winner.
Sophomore biology major Rebekah Lang is managing and organizing the spoon game this year and is very excited to see how this “massive game of tag” with over 60 participants will turn out, not only for the pure excitement of the activity, but also for the underlying cause it supports.
“All the money raised through the spoon game goes toward summer missions, and being on a Christian campus, missions is a very important focus,” Lang said.
Not only does the spoon game help expand missions globally, but its also designed to help expand student involvement. For example, the Shorter BCM is taking further initiatives to expand the scope and impact of the game this year by partnering with the Admissions office to use the spoon game as promotional material for prospective students. The competition is also being expanded to get freshman more involved both on campus and in BCM.
Moreover, the “spoon game” is grounds for historic and continuous bragging rights. Shorter University’s own campus minister and alumnus, Josh Pilgrim, is a two-time consecutive spoon game champion, and he continues to boast about it to this day.
And although the “spoon game” is a friendly competition, it should be noted that injuries have occurred in the past due to the creative, and arguably crazy, ways students try to tag out one another. There have been a few wrist sprains, and one student even broke his leg jumping off a balcony to tag his target!
A calmer and common tactic, however, involves simply lurking around a target’s class and waiting for him to become “exposed” as they leave. Sophomore Christian Studies major and second-time spoon game competitor Will Lawson said he figures out his targets’ class schedules in order to hunt them down and tag them.Targets are said to have climbed through windows to get to their dorm rooms or classes to avoid being detected and tagged.
“Everybody is on their toes, freaking out,” Lawson said.
Competitors also tend to stay away from the caf during the “Spoon Game” because it is considered is “a major battleground”.
Nonetheless, although the spoon game is a competition, participating in it brings more than just temporary rivalry. The competition is said to bring students closer together and to build school moral.
“It builds community around the school. It helps people get together and form alliances,” Lawson said.
Roland added that the spoon game builds community, creates new friendships and helps students get to know one another in an exciting way.
Simply put, the activity “provides the students [the opportunity] to get to know some people they never would have known,” Roland said.
The spoon game has provided many laughs and stories to share around Shorter’s campus and is a fundraiser that hopefully will continue for more years to come.
