 "Photo: The Olympian/ Ted Copeland")
 "Photo: The Olympian/ Ted Copeland")
 "Photo: The Olympian/ Ted Copeland")
The newly sanctioned Nerf Club hosted their first meeting in the Bremer Student Center Gym, complete with a plethora of Nerf guns, ammo and excited students, March 1 at 11 a.m.
The event was originally scheduled for noon, but it was pushed back because the gym had already been reserved for a volleyball class at that time.
“Even with the scheduling difficulties the club had a better turnout than we could have hoped,” said president of the club Jon Miller.
Some students brought their own Nerf equipment, but the Nerf Club provided 14 weapons that were labeled with OC on the sides to indicate that they were club property.
The club had a lot of support from the Recreation Department. Preston Bennet, a student employee from Recreations, officiated the event and the department paid for 50 percent of the equipment, which cost approximately $400. Recreation and Athletic Specialist Spencer Stark also allowed the Nerf Club to use the gym for one hour during what would usually be open gym time.
Miller and Bennet introduced themselves and went over the rules of the game, the object of which was to capture the flag.
There was enough time during the meet to go over the rules and play two games. The first game started out roughly, there were referees that monitored the performance. Team A was the first to score in the event. During the first game there were many rules that were broken by members and the referees had to constantly reiterate the rules.
Bennet, on the way to the sidelines said there were a lot of kinks to work out.
The game was long and very confusing at first.
The officials went over some alterations to the rules after the first game that they thought would make the game smoother.
One rule was as soon as the flag holder is shot, he/she has to drop the flag, the game freezes, and the flag holder is removed from the game. The referee then gives a countdown before the game can pick up again.
At the start of game two players became afraid to grab the flag. Once the flag was captured the person was immediately shot and had to drop the flag and leave the game.
This rule was made in hopes of making the game smoother but it made the players apprehensive to grabbing the flag and seemed to take a fairly long time.
Another rule that was changed after the first game was the team that captured the flag had to run the flag into the opponent’s field rather than their own.
Out of the 26 members that originally showed up, only eight had their own weapons. More members showed up at noon because of the scheduling confusion.
“After the event I overheard at least a dozen people asking when the event was going to happen again,” Miller said.
Miller admitted the rules were poorly constructed but “we wanted a kind of game that would be fun, workable, easy to regulate, that worked well in the gym, and that could be amended to work outside.”
The club is intended for anyone and everyone, there are no sign-ups, whoever wants to show up to a club meeting can participate.
“Student Organizers allowed the club to use all the space to advertise,” Miller said. “There were a lot of people that supported the club and I feel that’s why we had a great turnout.”
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