I experienced a University of Illinois snow day for only the second time in nearly three years as a student here this past Monday. It’s a magical time when students who are supposed to be embracing adulthood cast off the responsibilities of scholarship and, instead, run around campus as if 10 years old again.
The Quad is immediately transformed into a battleground. It’s friend against friend and roommate against roommate in the ultimate snow-day must — a snowball fight.
As I entered into the fray, watching the chaos unfold around me, it became apparent rather quickly that snowball fights exist in two dimensions. They are at the same time a schoolyard game, and an example of how combining pieces of different sports makes for perhaps the most entertaining display of athleticism known to man.
My first instinct was that it resembled baseball. Chucking rock-solid snow at your friends across frozen tundra as hard as you can. Sure, there are no bases to cover or runs to score, but it’s all about arm strength. And just like baseball or softball, getting hit with a well-formed snowball hurts like few other things do. I had convinced myself I was going to wake up on Tuesday with a black eye, but thankfully it seems that the snowball gods smiled upon me, and I remain eye-patch free. Hallelujah.
But wait, what about the (not so) occasional tackle? When you get so wrapped up in the game and a snowball just won’t do, you have to physically take down your opponent. Because it’s not abuse when they land in nice fluffy snow, right?
Those hard hits have to be the football aspect of this backyard brawl. And let me tell you, there are a bunch of different ways to tackle someone in the midst of a snowball fight. There’s the “revenge for eating my last box of thin mints” tackle, the “I’m so into this game and I don’t really know what I’m doing anymore” tackle, and my personal favorite, the “SNOWBALL FIGHT HULK SMASH” tackle. Better watch out, that one’s a doozy.
To be the ultimate snowball fight champion, lightning-fast reflexes are a must, and who knows this better than the guys and girls who step into the boxing ring? Just like avoiding left jabs and uppercuts, a top-notch snow-baller needs to be able to sidestep and deflect those ice-cold missiles with the speed of Sugar Ray Robinson and Joe Louis in their prime. Or at least try not to get hit in the face like yours truly.
On to the next one. There is no way track and field gets overlooked in its contribution to snowball fights. What do you do to avoid getting hit? You run away. Simple as that. It’s so obvious I almost missed it.
Stamina is critical for success. It’s important to pace yourself, but you have to know when to turn on the juice. That 40-yard-dash across the Quad to your pile of ammo hidden behind the Eternal Flame is life or death in a game that necessitates endurance and grit. Don’t forget the overturned snowmen you have to hurdle on the way there. Sprinters have it made in snowball fights; after all, they can’t hit you if they can’t get within 30 yards of you, right?
And so I look forward to the next spring snowstorm because I, Aryn Braun: Snow Day Vigilante, have discovered the perfect combination. In order to be the ultimate snowball fight warrior, all you need to do is have the arm strength of a Cy Young Award winner, tackling instincts of a linebacker, reflexes of a heavyweight champ and the speed and agility of a Jamaican track star.
Easy.
Aryn is a junior in LAS. She can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @ArynBraun.
