a referee holding a dodgeball
Chase Gymnasium was packed on Sept. 15 for the annual Nationball dorm competition, a student tradition that has exploded in popularity in recent years.
  1. Nationball is an annual campus-wide dodgeball tournament, organized by the Associated Students Spirit Board, in which dorms battle each other in old-school dodgeball matches.
     
  2. Nationball is the first major spirit event of the year for undergrad students.
     
  3. Each dorm has a designated “team color” to wear. Sigma = yellow, Alpha = blue, Emerson = green, Horton = black, Hope = pink, Stewart = red, Hart = orange, Off Campus Commuters = purple.
     
  4. This year, one Alpha RA arrived wearing a wedding dress with three “blue bridesmaids,” a blue bouquet and a blue tiara.
     
  5. Emerson residents came dressed as doctors and nurses this year. Each time one of their fellow brothers got hit in the game, a “nurse” attended to the victim.
     
  6. Instead of traditional bracket play, matches are determined randomly by a colored bike wheel.
     
  7. Nationball kicks off the dorm point competition for the year. The dorm with the most spirit points at the end of the year is awarded a dorm championship breakfast and dorm champion T-shirts. The winner of Nationball receives 1,000 points.
     
  8. This year’s Nationball championship match was between Hope Hall and Sigma, with Hope emerging victorious.
     
  9. Although Hart Hall did not advance past the first round, they made waves when they displayed the rarely seen 300-pound concrete Biola Egg on a bed frame “throne” carried in by eight Hart residents.