"I was trying to get to the Science Center, and they tried to block my entry," says Matthew C. Janicak '04 of the basketball-playing punches. "When I walked around them, they hit me in the back with a basketball."
But most say the initiations added an entertaining spark to their daily routine.
"You have to take these things with a grain of salt," says C. Chanley Howell '03. "It's just an outlet for fun. I don't think they should be taken all that seriously."
And one student notes that even those who are distracted by the initiations have far more to worry about. Each day, hawkers force pamphlets, brochures, buttons, advertisements and questionable foodstuffs into the hands of students just trying to grab a slice of pizza in the Greenhouse or wake up before an astrophysics lecture.
"They weren't selling anything or harassing people," says Sean M. O'Neill '02. "They were just wearing stupid clothes."