Competition Generates Intense Tactics

Students payed $1 to enter the game and receive a plastic squirt gun with which they will attempt to shoot down their appointed victim.

Kelsey Heng

Whenever she is outside this week, Debra Pope’s hand is on the gun inside of her pocket. This is not a safety violation; Pope is a part of Catch Me If You Can, an Associated Students sponsored water gun war.

According to Emilee Sutherland, the Social Board chair, this year’s competition has 130 participants, down from the approximately 150 last year, and the majority of contestants are male. Sutherland described Catch Me if You Can as a fun event that is inexpensive and available to everyone.

“Many of our events cost money like concerts and Spring Banquet and this is a game that promotes good times, community, and it’s the most fun you can have for only $1.”

The hours of play are Monday, April 7, through Thursday, April 10, from 8 a.m. to midnight. The rules are simple; each student is given a “contract”—or a slip of paper with another player’s name—and a water gun. Each student must hunt down their contracted victim and squirt them; once accomplished, the victim signs the killer’s contract and hands over his own. The name on the victim’s contract becomes the new target for the killer.

Jesse Hernandez, a senior Physical Education major, has participated in Catch Me If You Can for the last three years, and has never been killed. He was almost caught once, but the opponent forgot to say the phrase, and he was given an allotted hour of escape time—if the victim shoots his attacker first, he receives an hour of immunity.

Each year, students have to say a phrase before shooting their victim. This year’s phrase is “I’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse.” The killing is not valid unless the killer says this verbatim.

Pope, the winner of the last two years’ competitions, is an enthused participant.

“I enjoy hunting people down and then staking it out. I get an adrenaline rush coming up to the person—I’m still shaking a little bit,” she said, referring to the recent “kill” she made before talking to me.

Pope is the two-year reigning champion; two years ago she won with nine victims, and last year her five “kills” made her part of a three-way tie. Her “killing” methods are creative and meticulous; she has staked out buildings for hours, hidden in bushes, and come up with elaborate schemes that she wouldn’t mention for fear of giving away secrets to her assassin.

Her defense methods are equally complex.

“I’m paranoid. I change outfits a few times a day,” said Pope.

In the past, she has climbed out of a cafeteria window to avoid her stalker at the front. One year she bribed her assassin with an offer of twenty dollars if she won—which she did. Pope is candid in her opinion about this game.

“I’m obsessed with Catch Me If You Can. It’s pretty much the best game ever, and it overtakes my life.”