Ever wonder why collegiate sports just aren’t quite festive enough? Ever wonder if players could perhaps dress to improve the festive feeling around the stadium? Well, the UMBC has devised a way to effectively combine sports with holidays like Valentine’s Day, Easter, Halloween and Christmas in a way that will lift the mood around the school.
Any games that take place during the week preceding these celebrations would be performed in the new events center being developed on Back Road, Catonsville. Head of sports events Clarence Wojadubakowski called it “Merry Mingling Sports” and said that “with this [the new sports event], UMBC sports would now be envy of all Maryland schools!”
Wojadubakowski explained that he got this idea last year while scrolling through social media. He said that he came up with Merry Mingling while watching a video on Vine (R.I.P) at home.
“There was a guy dressed in a long white gown, a red sash and a long brunette wig,” said Wojadubakowski. “He was playing basketball, running around making three pointers [and] lay-ups – in a dress! I thought that was the funniest thing I had ever seen and the caption was ‘Jesus taking ankles’. It then got me thinking: this could be a good idea for the school. I ran the idea by the President Hrabowski, a year later and he loved it. I mean, who would not want to see Jesus dunking?”
He said he knows that students love those four days, so he thinks it would be nice to have them dress up to honor the days properly. As described by his assistant, Cook Klu, during these four celebrations, each player is going to dress up as a character of their choice that reflects the related events. For example, on Halloween, there could be Batman playing goalie on the soccer team and during Easter, the Easter Bunny serving as center forward.
Klu said that on the occasion where a festive game is not a UMBC home game, Wojadubakowski would discuss changing the venue with the sports director of the opposing school. She suggested that there would be no problems with the venue change because the directors will marvel when they hear about UMBC’s revolutionary idea.
She also said the only added rules are that no two players can be the same character and each player must wear a colored cape over their costumes so the audience knows who is on which team. She said Wojadubakowski expects full cooperation from the students and she is most looking forward to her friend, sophomore Claire Bair, scoring goals for the women’s lacrosse team as Cupid.
With Easter coming up in a few weeks, Wojadubakowski stated that he is delighted to get approval for the event and he is looking forward to its inaugural game. He describes this semester as “exciting times for the UMBC family” and that he hopes we would see more events like Merry Mingling in the future. All that is left is for the team coaches to get the players ready for the first Easter-themed game on April 10 this year.
