Greek Week 2023 Races Through UWG

Douglas Salter

Students across the four different Greek councils came together and teamed up to compete against one another in various competitions for Greek Week 2023. This year’s theme was Pixar’s Cars franchise.

Some of the mini games, trivia, and seven teams were centered on the three movies and their iconic characters. Other competitions included volleyball and Greek Week’s most popular event Penny Wars. This game consisted of teams earning points by putting pennies in their buckets to gain points and silver coins in other team’s buckets to take points away from them. Points were tallied based on who won certain events and attendance from each team.

The entire week was organized by the Greek Programming Board (GPB), an organization led by students from across Greek Life. They promote Greek Life, plan events and coordinate within UWG. 

“Overall Greek Week was a massive success,” said Greek Programming Board Member, Eric Walters. “Everyone had lots of fun participating in the events and cheering each other on. We also as a group enjoyed planning, putting on, and watching our events succeed. We felt that the theme of Cars was a really good idea not only because of the creativity, but how we were able to center someof our games around it.”

Monday night kicked off the week with GPB hosting a spirit night at Sips Soda. By attending, teams were able to add points to their scores for every member that attended. Buying sodas allowed Sips to donate a small portion of theearnings to GPB. The Greek Programming Board in return was able to use funds to make their events bigger and better year round.

Tuesday night’s lone event was volleyball. The event was held at the Greek Village’s volleyball court. In a single eliminationtournament, teams of six competed in games that went up to 21 points. The tournament was won by Team Chick Hicks (Alpha Xi Delta, Chi Phi and Alpha Kappa Alpha).

“In most athletic tournaments we have seen kickball and basketball dominate schedules,” saidWalters. “We felt that volleyball was a nice change as it really depended more on strategy versus speed and strength.”

Wednesday night the Greek Games were hosted in the back gyms in the Campus Center. There were four different games and two that centered around the theme. The games were Balloon Pop Sit, Three Legged Race, Pit Stop Relay and the World Grand Prix Car Race. The Pit Stop Relay had 4 members from each team set up their cars. They blew up tires (balloons), filled up their gas tanks (a bucket with water) and drove their cars (scooters) across the gym. The World Grand Prix allowed teams to build their own cars from scratch (most teams used shopping carts) and race around the gym. Team Ramone (Delta Zeta, Kappa Sigma and Sigma Gamma Rho) took the win for the night with two games under their belt.

“We felt that the theme of Cars was a really good idea not only because of the creativity, but how we were able to center some of our games around it,” said Walters. “I personally enjoyed seeing the car race because of the hilarious chaos that ensued because of it.”

Thursday night was Jeopardy. Like Jeopardy, there were five categories with questions ranging from 100 to 500 points, all questions were centered around the theme. The game was dominated all the way through by Team Francesco Bernoulli (Kappa Delta, Sigma Chi and Tau Kappa Epsilon) who won by 600 points.

“Jeopardy might have been my personal favorite,” said Walters. “While that could be biased since I am a member of TKE and that is the only event we won, all in all it was good fun.”

That was the last of the games and all that was left was for GPB to count up the points. They brought everyone to back gyms on Friday to announce Team Ramone (Delta Zeta, Kappa Sigma, and Sigma Gamma Rho), who alsowas announced the winner of Penny Wars.

“While my organization did not win, I personally enjoyed Greek Week,” said Walters. “I graduate in the fall so this was my last Greek Week and I think as a member of GPB we did a pretty good job.”