News Highlights

Some campus organizations are far from the norm

Anime, paintball, stepping

Among the Umniversity's 200 organizations are a number of unusual organizations, including the Anime Club (appreciating Japanese animation), the Paintball Club, and the Step Team.

2008-01-29
By Leticia Gonzales, Free Press Correspondent [published in The Free Press, Mankato, MN, 1/29/2008]

Extracurricular activities are no longer limited to basketball, football or a fraternity or sorority. Many non-traditional student organizations and clubs have been sprouting up on college campuses offering something for everyone.

The Appreciation of Japanese Animation and Culture club is one of nearly 200 registered organizations and clubs students at Minnesota State University can join.

The club was founded in 2003 by three freshmen and was then called the "Anime Fan Club."

So what exactly is "anime" and what kind of people join the club?

"I like to describe it as foreign animation, and a typical response is someone practically rolling their eyes," said club president Ryan Ferraro. Many people associate all animation to cartoons, therefore for children."

Ferraro, a senior studying computer information science, was introduced to anime when he was in junior high.

"It was during that same time period that some of the cable channels where starting to air a few anime movies and TV shows, notably the Sci-Fi channel," he said.

The group has about 50 members, half of which attend club meetings twice weekly on Mondays and Wednesdays. Meetings consist of doing what club members have in common — watching anime.

Ferraro said the group also plans video game nights, where they battle it out with Nintendo Wii games, Guitar Hero or Rock Band.

Splat! If you would rather bring a game to life, check out MSU's Paintball Club. The club, which has been around since 2002, practices once a week in a pair of locations: Air Assault Paintball in Maple Plaine and Minnesota Pro Paintball in Farmington.

There are about 17 members in the club, and they compete in paintball tournaments.

MSU's team won the Midwest Division of the National Collegiate Paint Ball Association in 2002. The team that year also traveled to the national championships.

Tournament paintball is played on a small field about 150 feet by 100 feet, with inflatable air bunkers placed on the field in a predetermined set up, one side mirroring the other. Games are quick and fierce and usually last about two minutes. The maximum game time is five minutes.

"Each player shoots semi automatic at about 14 balls per second; each player usually goes through about 800 paint balls a game," said Club President Robert Grover. Points are scored by eliminating opposing players as well as pulling and hanging the flag in the middle of the field.

"The winning team is usually the team that works the best together and (moves) to get the right angles to eliminate the other team." Grover, a sophomore studying science education with an emphasis in physics, said there were an estimated 9.6 million paintball players nationwide in 2004.

Even the U.S. Army has taken notice of the sport. Last year there were reports that the military was targeting paintball players as potential recruits for their front lines.

Another non-traditional student organization new on campus is the Step Team. Connie "C.J." Johnson, the group's founder, said the group officially started up last October. Johnson, a senior in speech communications, said the group practices three to four times a week.

"I looked through the activities and saw that the school had cheerleading and a dance team, neither of which had the flair I was looking for," she said. "I knew I needed to get something started up that people could really relate with. I rounded up a few students and asked them if they were interested and we grew from there."

Johnson describes stepping as an art form of rhythmic movements that entails using your body as a percussion instrument to be seen and heard.

"(It's) clapping and stomping and looking real good doing it," she said. "Stepping can give you a sense of accomplishment and acknowledgment of doing something that connects you historically with those who came before you and those that will come after you."

Johnson said stepping is popular in the South and among ethnic Greek organizations on college campuses across the country, especially at historically black colleges and universities where they originated in the early 1900s.

"When I tell people that there is a step team in Mankato, I get one of two responses," Johnson said. "People are surprised and they don't believe me, or they have no clue what I'm talking about."

So far, Johnson believes the MSU step team is the only one of its kind in the Mankato area, but she hopes to change that.

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