Thanks to juniors Daniel Stuckey, Jeff Katzin, Anish Jain and Jason Karp, anyone traveling through the Tufts campus on Aug. 12 wouldn't have been alone in thinking they were on a middle school playground rather than in the middle of a university.
That afternoon, Sunset Entertainment - an entertainment collaborative comprised of Stuckey, Katzin, Jain, and Karp -organized a free dodgeball tournament, its third event of the summer. And despite its difference from "typical" college entertainment (read: lack of beer), response to the event, and to Sunset's previous two initiatives, kickball and capture the flag, has been staggeringly positive.
"People have just been so happy - it's such a nice change," said Karp, who co-founded Sunset with his 413 Sunset St. housemates to provide students with a fresh social outlet. "In the 'normal' college social scene, you go to the frat, you drink the beer, you stumble home drunk, or, if you're lucky, you stumble home to someone else's bed. But this is just so much fun; it's like being a little kid again!"
"It was so much fun - it was all those random sports that you played in elementary school that you still really love, but no one really plays anymore," agreed junior Greg Fujita, who attended all three Sunset events. "It was one of those opportunities to actually talk with the hundred people who you've always seen around campus, but never talked to."
"The weather was nice, the events were good ideas, and on top of it, you got to meet other people in the area," echoed junior Alex Sherman, who played capture the flag and dodgeball.
"When we were playing dodgeball on the tennis courts, quite a few tennis players decided to play dodgeball instead of tennis," Fujita laughed.
The games' social appeal, drawing everyone from engineers to English majors, also impressed junior Cassidy Morris, a participant in the capture the flag and dodgeball games. "The friendly nature of the games and the athletes [was] contagious for passersby, who'd join in or watch," Morris said. "People would see the fun we were having and couldn't help but join in."
Attendees also welcomed Sunset's events as a colorful respite from summer malaise. "You know, when you get home from work, you either watch TV...or you go play kickball with a whole bunch of random people!" Fujita said.
"If you live here during the summer, you're basically on your own to come up with your own entertainment - the functions provided by student organizations and the university during the year are unavailable," Sherman said. "Who wouldn't want to play capture the flag with face paint on the academic quad?"
Karp feels that much of Sunset's events' success is due to their appeal to the kid in every college student. "It's cheesy as hell, but it's good clean fun," Karp said. "I mean, half of us were camp counselors, and that's basically what we're doing. We're playing the same games that we played as little kids, but now we haven't played them in 10 years, so it's exciting."
That excitement has drawn an increasingly large amount of attention, and, thanks to its success over the summer months, Sunset will organize similar events throughout the school year. "They keep getting bigger and bigger," Karp said of the group's ventures so far. "The first time, we sent Evites out to maybe 40 people, and now it's 250! It grew really rapidly."
Utilizing the Evite system-which allows users to send invitations and receive RSVPs online-as a publicizing tool has helped Sunset to reach as many people as possible. "I had never used it before, but it's easy, it's cheap, it's free-no problems with that!" he said. "Plus, people are able to post responses. It's pretty encouraging to read them, and to see people get all psyched up...like, for capture the flag, we all came in full face paint and full regalia."
The capture the flag game, Sunset's second endeavor, was held on the academic quad and drew over 80 enthusiastic participants. Even a few cops got into the spirit: "The Tufts police have been awesome," Karp said. "They almost invariably show up at our events and say, 'What's going on?' We tell them, 'We're Tufts kids having a good time; no one's causing any trouble,' and they're totally there for us, and very supportive."
With its third event, dodgeball, Sunset's repertoire expanded to include indoor activities as well as outdoor. Participants in the Aug. 12 dodgeball game followed up the action by viewing a certain hit movie at the Somerville Theater - at a discounted cost.
"The idea was 'Dodgeball and Dodgeball,'" Karp said. "Anish is in The Residence, a band that had done a benefit concert at the Somerville Theater last semester. He explained the idea to the manager, who was very nice about it and gave us the group rate." Only one problem: "By the end of playing dodgeball, we were so tired that some of us ended up not going to the movie!" Karp laughed.
Sunset's members plan on carrying their group's momentum and name forward during the upcoming schoolyear, even though they're all moving off of their namesake street.
"For our next event in September, I'm expecting a huge number of people," Karp said. That event, an Australian field game called "Rob the Nest," will be held on the academic quad Sept. 6.
"We're hoping to get a good crowd because people will want to be social without wanting to go to a party the night before classes start," Karp's Sunset co-founder Jeff Katzin said.
Morris, for one, would love to be there. "I'm glad that I had the opportunity this summer to have such good fun with some very cool people," she said.
