by Xypher Pino

On April 12, 2024, Greensboro College hosted the inaugural GC Olympics – a one-day competitive sporting event based on the actual Olympics open for everyone on campus, whether athlete or non-athlete, to participate in and enjoy.

Over the past couple of months, the Student Government Association (SGA) has been working extremely hard to bring this event to fruition. It took dozens of hours to plan and execute the GC Olympics, but the effort was clearly worth it as over a hundred students competed and everybody had a blast playing against one another.

The event started off behind the Main Building where tons of snacks, drinks and a plethora of games were available for students to partake in before the official start of the Olympics. The official tip-off began at 7:45 p.m. after a few remarks from student body president Alex Trepper, the individual primarily responsible for organizing this whole event, where he mentioned that for every GC student attending this event, the school’s president, Dr. Lawrence Czarda, was going to donate five dollars to Special Olympics – a very generous gesture indeed. After Trepper welcomed all of the competitors, over 60 students cheered on and marched towards Pride Field to start the first few set of games.

There were four main games that were played at the GC Olympics: red light green light, a rock paper scissors tournament, a ping pong tournament and a potato sack race.

The first game took place at Pride Field. Numerous students lined up across the field to play red light green light – a game whose winner is determined by whoever crosses the finish line first without getting caught moving when “red light” is called out. Rather quickly, the majority of the participants got eliminated as a lot of people were tricked by Trepper’s deceptive announcements of “red light” and “green light.” At the end of it all, Jarrell Thomas came home with the win and the first GC Olympic gold medal in history. Tonya Williams was close to winning the whole game but fell short and received the silver medal. Brayden Gregory was the third person to get across the finish line and therefore received the bronze medal.

When asked what it was like to win the first ever GC Olympic gold medal, Thomas stated, “Sometimes, you just have to remember that the cucumber had to sit a grinder to become a pickle.” An interesting quote, to say the least, from the very first gold medalist champion in history GC Olympics.

After the conclusion of the first game, everybody then quickly transitioned into playing a knockout-style, best two-out-of-three rock paper scissors tournament. It was an absolute blast watching everyone get knocked out left and right, one after another. This was an extremely fast-paced tournament, and it came right down to the wire with the final four contestants – Elmer Ventura versus Grace Klingensmith and Sarai Acosta versus JuJuan Givens.  The match between Ventura and Klingensmith was the bronze winner determining match. After an extremely tight and long match, Klingensmith eventually came out on top and went home with the bronze medal. Now, it was time for the best, or luckiest, rock paper scissors players of GC: Sarai Acosta versus JaJuan Givens. After a long, hard-fought battle, cheers erupted as Givens came on top and came home with the gold medal. Givens was ecstatic as he celebrated his victory with his very supportive football teammates.

As the winner of this intense fast-paced tournament, The Collegian had to ask Givens what his strategy was coming into the matches, and he stated: “Honestly, rock paper scissors is mainly about luck. Luckily for me, luck was really on my side today.”

The third game was the 20-yard potato sack race, still at Pride Field. Pairs of students at a time competed against one another to see who crossed the finish line first, and the winner of this competition was determined based on who crossed the finish line the fastest. There were a lot of funny moments during this game as friends were able to go against one another and have mini-competitions between them and of course, as expected, plenty of people fell flat on the ground, which was obviously a hilarious sight. Givens, once again, came home with the gold medal, while Ian Bast received the silver medal and Mekhi Hairston with the bronze medal.

Givens, undoubtedly the most outstanding athlete of the very first GC Olympics, had a very insightful strategy for the potato sack race: “The first time I went, I was really slow. I brainstormed some ideas and figured out that I had to adjust the position of my hand to a certain point where I can pull as much of the bag in order to move as quickly as possible. It ended up working out for me.”

When asked about his overall thoughts on becoming a two-time gold medalist, “It is great. First ever GC Olympics and coming home with two gold medals? We are making history over here.”

The final game was the most competitive game of the GC Olympics and was the one that a lot of students were excited about – the ping pong tournament. Many students at GC have claimed to be the best ping pong player on campus – this was the time to prove once and for all who the ultimate ping pong king, or queen, is on campus.

As you might expect, all of the matches were highly competitive and highly entertaining. There were 32 people participating, and almost every match came down to the wire, especially when experienced players started matching up against one another. One of the best matchups of the competition was between Trepper and Babatunde Odofin. When both of these individuals matched up, students spectating started jokingly betting on who they thought was going to win between these two ping pong superstars. At the end of the match, Odofin was able to pull off the win, which was not a surprise to a lot of people.

There were a few more intense matches such as that one, but eventually, it came down to the final two individuals – Odofin and Nkemjika Nze. This matchup certainly did not disappoint as just like the rest of the matches, it came right down to the wire. Students were cheering for their favorites and were in awe with the amount of talent between these two individuals. They went back and forth at the beginning, but Nze stepped up his game and built a decent 7-3 lead. Odofin continued to put up a fight and even lessened the deficit to less than three. In the end, it was Nze who won the gold medal and came home with the ping pong king title.

Nze was thrilled to be the winner of this competition but was not surprised whatsoever to finally be able to officially call himself the ping pong king: “It feels good, but that was honestly too easy for me!”

After the conclusion of the ping pong tournament, everyone gathered around for the closing ceremony where the winners of each game were officially announced and given their respective medals. It was a beautiful sight seeing all of the support that each winning student received and the joy in everyone’s faces, whether they did win or not. It was very clear that this was a much-needed break for students before final projects, exams and papers are due, and that everyone had a fantastic time participating in this event.

After the event, The Collegian asked Trepper about his overall thoughts on the first-ever GC Olympics, and what it is like to just have finished the very last event of his SGA presidential term, and he had this to say: “I think it was a great success. We had so many people come out and compete. It was really fun seeing everyone enjoy the event, coming in costumes and even bringing their own flags. It was a great community bonding event and if this is the way I go out, it could not have been any better.”

The GC Olympics is one of the best events that GC has put on over the past couple of years, and it was an absolute pleasure to be a part of. A lot of the credit goes to the individuals who participated in the organizing, setting up and execution of this event. If you missed this event, do not worry as the GC Olympics will be back next spring, even better than it was this year!