This weekend greek life students charged at each other inside of giant inflatable bubbles on Munn field.
It was all part of Sigma Pi’s first ever bubble soccer tournament, hosted by Bubble Soccer Detroit.
Sigma Pi philanthropy chairman and accounting senior Tyler Jelonek said the idea for the tournament came from his fraternity brother being the president of Bubble Soccer Detroit.
“You’re always trying to reinvent yourself as philanthropy chair,” Jelonek said. “You want to make events that people want to do.”
He said he had never tried bubble soccer before, but he had played soccer growing up and found this to be a much different experience.
“It’s very tiring, but it’s nice because you don’t really get hurt so you can bump people around and do whatever,” Jelonek said.
He said his favorite part of playing bubble soccer is the kickoff, because everyone just runs at each other full force.
The goal of the event was to raise money for the Amazing Day Foundation, an organization which helps raise awareness for suicide prevention among college students.
Rather than doing a typical fundraiser, Jelonek wanted to create something fun for the people who participated.
“I think it gets people more involved,” Jelonek said, “It makes it easier for people that donate because they want to do this event instead of going to said restaurant and buying said food.”
One of the challenges Jelonek faced when planning the event was deciding what to do in case of a tie.
He said to be successful the games had to go quickly with the overall event lasting about two hours.
Education senior Jamie Nagel and member of Sigma Kappa, the winning team of the girls’ bracket, said her favorite part of the event was just getting to play the game with friends.
“I got knocked over a couple times, but it was fun,” Nagel said.
She said the most challenging part was having the ball and being blindsided by someone who crashed into her.
Kinesiology senior and Sigma Kappa member Sara Brady said she played soccer growing up, but this was different than she expected because the players can’t really see their feet.
She said the inflatable ball was heavier than she thought it would be and hot in the sun.
“My favorite part was to run and knock people and fall over,” Brady said. “It doesn’t hurt at all and it’s really fun.”
