Day Two.

Swift and President Trzaska representing Steds

The Stedsmen traveled to Sorin for day two of the inter-hall Olympic Games. Games of day two consisted of various eating contests. While goodwill waft through the halls of Sorin, there was something else wafting in the air... controversy. Though no official challenge was lodged by the Steds Olympic delegation, Sorin, at the last minute, changed one of the eating contests from hot dogs to chicken nuggets. Still, the Stedsmen took the change in stride. As the games commenced, games of eating Saltines, nuggets, wings, and more, the lead changed hands several times, but in the end, Steds ate like never before to deliver a much needed win. On the win at Sorin, Dan Riley, Steds senior and RA, said, "I wasn't there, but I heard we won." John Swift, Steds freshman and Olympian, said, "Until now, I didn’t know it was physically possible to fit an entire chicken into a human stomach."

While Riley wasn't there, here is an eyewitness account from a Stedsmen, Paddy Millican, who WAS there. Enjoy.

STEDS COMES FROM BEHIND TO DEFEAT SORIN 5-4 IN EAT-OFF

There we were amidst the traps and snares of our enemies. Long had we planned to have a hot-dog eating contest this night, but in the eleventh hour, with scarcely cause or notice, our foul foes changed our contest to a three-part trial of chicken nuggets, Saltines, and hot wings! O perfidy! O treachery! O wretched fraud! Hardly could I comprehend what odds, once even between our two sides, were stacked thereby against us! Hope we had, but trepidation, too, in equal measure, as we marched somber into that den of vice.

The horns of the games blew, and the first trial—that of the chicken nuggets—began in earnest, our side nobly led by our president, Lord Trzaska, and Squire Swift of the Flounge. Fight though they did, the gluttons Sorin arrayed against them proved deep of belly and wide of mouth. The score stood 3-0 as the round of Saltines dawned.

No Stedsman, be he well- or ill-disposed towards our vice-president, Sir Lupo of Peewaukee, could call him easily daunted by competition. Thus, when Duty bid him rise and defend the honor of Hall and Founder, he so did. But to no avail. Sir Lupo was not a man accustomed to ravenous consumption: nay, he was always a man of moderate eating habits, and his foray into battle proved futile.

Sorin led four to nil, and in the shoes of our beloved warriors, lesser men might have shied from competition, especially against enemies so unswayed by honor and the ordinary limitations of the human appetite. Nevertheless, Thane Braeden Benedict, Rower of the North, stepped forth from the assembled throng and, with such ferocity that I myself quake in remembering it, dispatched his foe, giving Steds its first point of the match.

There remained one round of Saltines, and momentum, if it was with Steds, proved force enough to innervate Master Logan Arnold, who is known far and wide in this land for his prowess in distance running. Not content for glory in but one field of endeavor, he threw his coat to me, dear reader, and sat down. More crackers in one mouth I have never seen than in that of Master Arnold as he chewed! chewed! chewed! and in the execution of such fast chomping awed all assembled. In the nick of time, he swallowed the desiccated bolus and bore his clean mouth. 4-2! And not the best part had yet been reached.

Spice: what a bemusing mistress thou art. Men will risk and limb to bring thee back from the antipodes only to grimace and sweat when they consume thee as condiment! Such complexities had I scarce time to ponder as Brandon, Duke Ryan of East Madison, strode with stupefying confidence before us all and sat in a humble wooden chair that he made a veritable throne by his mere presence. The wings were placed before the two men, now bare-chested, and they tucked into the feast. One by one, dear reader, he tore sinew and tendon from bone and ligament and, scraping his teeth against the ossein to clean each wing to the referee’s satisfaction, tossed bone after bone into a pile that resembled a vulture-picked skeleton. Finally, as the jeers of our enemies subsided as they saw that our victory was nigh, he pitched his last bone away.

His fingers and face daubed red as if with the blood of a young calf slaughtered fresh by a gray wolf of the north, he rose to the adulation of his erstwhile subjects and those he serves still, and as if the magnitude of his deeds needed a final flourish, he refused to drink milk to soothe his burning maw. We cheered as never before as we realized what had been accomplished before our very eyes. Our backs against the wall, we scored five points in a row and bested a foe who had sought and failed pto outwit us with deceit and trickery. With high spirits and glad hearts, we departed for our dear home.

TL;DR

Joe Trzaska and John Swift lost a chicken-nugget-eating contest in a close match, which gave Sorin 3 points.

Matt Lupo also lost a close race to eat seven Saltines, but Braeden Benedict and Logan Arnold each won that contest handily, making it 4-2 Sorin.

Brandon Ryan absolutely smashed his competition in a contest to finish a box of hot wings and won us 3 points. So we came back from 4-0 to win 5-4. It was truly spectacular. Competition will resume tomorrow night in Steds at 8:00pm.

Our hero: Former President Brandon Ryan