Boldly do what no man has done before
How many people have trod down Old Main Hill since its inception? How many tired, stinky feet have pressed into its grasses, crunched its leaves, and smashed its snow? You wonder sometimes if Old Main gets tired of people going down it all day, every day, the same old way: walking. But some students have found special innovative ideas to make the chore of walking down Old Main a bit more interesting.
One of these students is Richard Hart, a freshman in history. His logic is he travels on campus with a long board, so why not down Old Main?
“It’s the easiest way to get off campus,” Hart said.
He even has a simple technique to his escapade.
“Angle it,” he said.
Hart said to head down at an angle and once you reach the bottom, and if you get really lucky, he said you can cross completely to the other side. There is a patch of grass that doesn’t get cut very well right at the edge, he said, and it works perfectly for a safe bar.
Another student that has made interesting travels down Old Main is Jordan Sefcovic, a senior in mechanical engineering, who went down at an icy time in winter using a cookie sheet.
“Probably the dumbest thing I’ve ever done,” he said.
That’s debatable, considering he said he goes down on a “day-to-day basis” with his friend on a one-seated bicycle.
Lindsay Niedrich, a junior in elementary education has also gone down on a bicycle, but instead of riding down the grass, she said she decided to use the convenience of the stairs.
“I was really worried my bike was going to break down,” she said. “It was pretty hard on it.”
She said she had good shocks, so it wasn’t that bad. Also, she said she didn’t go that fast for fear of crashing without proper gear. Regardless, she said it was quite a rush.
“It’s cool to be able to say you’ve rode your bike down the Old Main steps,” she said. “It was something that I’ve wanted to do for a while, but I’ve been too scared to.”
Niedrich said she has done other fun things to get down Old Main including ice blocking and a slip n’ slide, but she said she is not satisfied.
“In the future,” she said, “I hope to ski or sled down, and maybe even go down on a couch.”
To go down Old Main hill on a couch may seem an absurd idea to anyone. You may be asking yourself how anyone would even go about it since couches have hardly the bottom surface to be ridden down a hill. But this idea has been brought to life by a band of students years ago.
John Hanson, a senior in business financing said he and his roommates are always looking for new things to do. One day, he said they had some old skis and a big couch in their apartment.
“One thing led to another and led to another and we put the skis on the couch,” he said.
They took big long bolts and attached the skis as straight as they could, Hanson said, and couch sledding was born. The idea to take it sledding down Old Main seemed dangerous at first, he said, but it was completely fine.
“It’s the safest sledding experience I’ve ever had,” he said. “The cushions are like suspension.”
He said they thought stopping would be difficult but it was actually one of the coolest parts.
“You stop Flintstones style,” Hanson said.
He said you put your feet down and sort of run with the couch and slow it down, then let your feet be the friction to stop it fully.
With all of the fun parts of this activity, there was sure to be a downside. The only bad part about using a couch, he said, is carrying it back up the hill over and over again, and especially in the snow, and especially since it was so big. But the size was a great plus factor, he said. He said they had up to six or seven people on there at a time. It was such a great time, he said, he recommends it to everyone.
“It’s the Cadillac of sleds,” he said.
After they were done, Hanson said they took off the skis and returned the couch in its proper position in the living room. Reflecting upon the adventure, Hanson said his favorite part was “the down part.”
The couch is not the only experience he’s had down Old Main. He said he once went ice blocking, and once rolled all the way down.
“That was quite an experience,” Hanson said.
You get so dizzy you can hardly stand, he said. But the worst thing he said he’s ever tried is using cardboard boxes on the grass.
“It doesn’t work,” he said simply.
With that in mind, there’s the safe way to go down Old Main, and there’s the fun way. What the fun way is to you, you must be the one to find out. But don’t be scared to get the rush. We all can use our imaginations to boldly do what no man has done before and keep Old Main on its toes. What fun new idea will we roll down with next?