PEOPLE - 76 FRESHMAN JESSICA MOORE prepares to kick the pigskin during the Harding University DormCup fieldgoal competition Sept. 9. The HUDCup competition provided opportunites for dorm residents to compete against each other In individual and team events. • A.lNGRAM Amid-summer night's dream turns real When senior Jimmy Huff ran for Student Association president in 2003, he promised he would work to build bridges among students. So, one mid-summer night he talked with Roddy Mote, assistant dean of students, about how he could best keep that promise. It was then the Harding University Dorm Cup was born. Huff said the HUD Cup program pitted residence hall against residence hall, with each dorm accumulating points based on the success of its members in various competitions including weight-lifting, a three-cn-three basketball tournament and a trivia quiz bowl. The residence hall with the most points at the end of the year received the HUD Cup trophy, and every resident of that dorm who participated in HUD Cup events was invited to a banquet at Eagle View Catering. "We wanted something that would give people an avenue of competition as well as an avenue of pride in their dorms," Huff said. "What sold me on it is that the dorm is the ultimate melting pot of people. You don't [choose] who lives on the hall with you or in your dorm, and having something that brings the members of your residence hall together is really incredible." Huff asked juniors Nate Copeland and Julie McCall to act as directors for the HUD Cup program. Copeland and McCall, along with a committee of six resident assistants, planned the HUD Cup events. In addition, Huff said the student services office helped in several ways including supplying the funds to make the HUD Cup competition free to all students. "They finance every- !hing, but they also come up with the rules and provide the necessary forms," Huff said. "They make our job very easy." At the beginning of the year, Huff, Copeland and McCall organized a kick-off dinner in the Liberty Room of the Heritage building. They invited 30 campus leaders from various social clubs and organizations. After unveiling the HUD Cup to them, Copeland and McCall offered a volunteer sign-up sheet. "We had a great response," McCall said. "That was a really neat way to get [the HUD Cup] started, and I think it made people feel like this was going to be big, something different, something to look forward to." The faIl semester competition began with a softball tournament, followed by a field goal competition in which freshman Michael White from Harbin kicked a 50-yard field goal and freshman Crystal Atkinson from Sears kicked a 30-yard field goal to win $300 toward textbooks and points toward the HUD Cup for their dorms. The HUD Cup directors said they were hopeful for the continued success of the inter-residence hall competition. "Different leaderships have tried to get the dorms involved because if you're not in a club or if you're not on an athletic team you don't have much to do sometimes," Copeland said. " So we're trying to get everybody involved and get everybody to know everybody through dorm competition. So far it has worked." Copeland said the HUD Cup helped the men in the dorms get to know things about each other that they wouldn't have known otherwise, and it gave them an opportunity to build reJationships with other men in the dorm they had not met before. "l'ma lresidentassistant] in Harbin. The guys are getting to know each other so well because they're on each others' teams," Copeland said. "And theyre all trying to play and get points for their dorm." -ALISA MOLONEY
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