By Max Calenberg

This past weekend, the Grinnell Relays began with the ceremonial lighting of the toilet and concluded with a spontaneous pie fight.

According to event organizer, Jake McVeigh ’11, Relays has a simple goal.

“[Relays is] a community-building event for faculty, staff and students to participate in a bunch of goofy different events in an environment they don’t normally interact in,” McVeigh said.

Co-organizer Matt Rosenbaum ’12 believes this statement was followed.

“This year’s Relays, according Professor Moyer, was the best he’s seen in 20 years,” Rosenbaum said. “It was a lot of fun—we had 176 participants.”

Although team “No Limits?,” consisting of Professor J. Montgomery Roper’s Fall 2008 Tutorial class, Roper included, won the event, Rosenbaum says winning is nowhere near the point.

“No knocks to Professor Roper’s team or any of the top three finishers, but the winners are kind of arbitrary,” Rosenbaum said. “When we’re deciding … it was pretty much just who we thought won the most and who we thought really stood out in our minds as good participants and good teams. In terms of scoring, we sort of lost track, which is … a testament to what the day’s about. It’s not about winning or losing or winning your events, it’s just about having a good time and hanging out with friends. If you want to drink, drink, if you want to eat, eat, but it has nothing to do with winning in mine and Jake’s opinion.”

Regardless, the winning team was given a beer stein purchased from Good Will.

When deciding what competitions the day would consist of, the two organizers decided to build on years past.

“We tried to make a mix of old events and new events. For the most part we used old events—the Milwaukee beverage relay, the dizzy bat relay, tug-a-war, obviously, pie eating contest,” Rosenbaum said. “But this year we tried to do a couple new things, including life size beer pong…the orange relay. So it was a little bit of a new, a little bit of old, which I think worked out pretty well.”

As far as highlights, both McVeigh and Rosenbaum agree the day ended in a grand finale.

“My favorite moment was the giant food fight that happened at the end during the pie eating contest,” Rosenbaum said.

McVeigh remembers it like it was last Saturday.

“[SPARC Co-Chair] Johnny Buse ’11, I believe, threw the first pie, and AJ Anderson received that first pie, in the face,” McVeigh said. “People started throwing pieces at each other and then it escalated, then I yelled ‘food fight’ through the microphone. Then people kept throwing pies until there were no pies left.”

Considering the circumstances, McVeigh sees flying crust and filling as an obvious outcome.

“I guess it’s expected to happen when you have 170 people and 80 pies, apple and cherry.”

If you missed the event this year, no worries, Rosenbaum has already committed to ensuring the tradition continues next spring. All he needs is your help.

“I need to find a committee, it was pretty challenging to just do with two people,” Rosenbaum said. “I’ll definitely be doing it next year and just need to find some other people to do it with me.”