Boston University Students Race for $3000 Dollars

You may have heard of The Amazing Race before. You know, that awesome reality television game show on CBS where duos team up and race around the world for a million dollar cash prize. You may have even recently watched Josh Kilmer-Purcell and Brent Ridge, two life partners and goat farmers, be crowned the winners of the official Amazing Race.


The pairs often have a pre-existing relationship with one another and their bonds, which may already be fragile, are put to extreme tests such as frying eggs in their hands or scaling really tall buildings. Now take that framework, shake it up and place it on the scale of Boston University and the greater Boston area.

According to Boston University’s 2012 Annual Report, there are approximately 33,000 students currently enrolled at the university. With such a large number of students comes a diverse, eclectic spirit that rages through every event, lecture and classroom on campus. Although BU embraces individuality, the administration also focuses on uniting the student body, faculty and staff under one umbrella movement: “Do What You Love.”

“Do What You Love” is the mantra for the Student Activities Office, a department under the Dean of Students that provides resources for students hoping to actively engage in campus life and participate in one or many of the 516 registered student organizations. One of the many functions SAO holds is planning events that will draw a large percentage of the BU community together. On December 2, 2012, SAO hosted Boston University’s 2nd Annual Amazing Race, an exciting competition that gives students the chance to explore Boston, bond with their friends and win a variety of prizes.

The rules and regulations were pretty simple: Find five friends who attend BU, sign up on SAO’s YouDo website and hand in official release forms before the day of the event. Other than that, there were no limitations on who could participate. “We wanted to make sure anyone who wanted to be involved could be. Not everyone is in a registered student group, but that shouldn’t disqualify them from participating,” said Taylor Sevigny, a Coordinator of Programs at the Student Activities Office.

Sevigny and her committee of 10 student employees and professional staff began planning The Amazing Race back in September, almost immediately after the school year began. Together, the committee carefully selected 13 locations and seven pit stops for teams to find and complete challenges. Although finding these locations based on clues may not be too difficult for somebody knowledgeable about the Boston area, students were required to leave all technology including cell phones behind during the race, a curveball that proved difficult for the 23 participating teams.

"I quickly realized what a crutch my smartphone is. I couldn't Google any of the clue details and we definitely couldn't use a GPS. We had to do it the good, old-fashioned way: hopping on public transit, running and relying on strangers for directions. It was definitely interesting," said Eric Baker, a senior at BU and member of the third place team, "General Biographers."

The race's route expanded over 10.5 miles around Boston. In order to get to the first location, students were required to trek to the South End and visit the Medieval Manor. From there, students raced to popular locations such as the SoWa Open Market, TD Garden and the Museum of Science. The race took approximately seven hours to complete and several teams, including the previous years' champs, Students Helping Honduras, dropped out due to exhaustion.
 
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James Ligot, a member of "Arvin's Acrobatic Angels," said that although the race was grueling, he and his team enjoyed themselves. "One of our members sprained her ankle early on in the day. Even though the volunteers were willing to make an exception and allow us to continue on without her, she didn't want to give up. We carried her the whole way and made it to the very end. Even though we didn't win, it was such a cool and motivating experience to see a teammate push through despite injury," said Ligot.

What could possibly motivate students to spend an entire day racing around Boston in rainy weather? A hefty cash prize is what kept most teams going. For individuals that were competing on behalf of a student group, the prize would be $3000 dollars deposited directly into their student group's bank account. This is a significant amount for student groups that often rely on the university's limited funding to program and plan events. For teams of friends that were competing independently, they would be given $1,500 to split among themselves.

After a long day of harassing strangers, embarrassing challenges, and many uses of Boston public transportation, the Razzle Dazzle Rompers came out on top as The Amazing Race 2012 champions. The members of the winning team were Anna Wolf, Shannon Johnson, Jack Long, Jason Gan, Steph Braman, and Helena Van Troy Duran.