The Ouachita Student Foundation’s annual Tiger Traks will be April 7-8. Considered to be Arkansas’ most exciting college weekend, Tiger Traks helps OSF raise funds to help keep students at Ouachita through student scholarships.
Tiger Traks teams are made up of eight people who compete in various events throughout the weekend. The sports range from indoor to outdoor and test different areas of skill.
The two main fundraisers that contribute to OSF scholarships are Tiger Tunes and Tiger Traks. While Tunes remains the main source of revenue for the scholarships, Traks continues to provide an exciting atmosphere for students while helping OSF achieve their fundraising goals.
“The main purpose of Traks is just to get together and have a good time, while raising money for student scholarships,” said Mari Bednar, OSF president and senior nutrition and dietetics major from Little Rock.
This year, OSF is offering several more features to attract participants. OSF offered free pizza from Big Cheese to teams who registered early. Bednar also promised features to improve the Traks experience, such as new games that will be introduced this year and updates to some of the old games. Specifically, OSF has invested in brand new tricycles for the tricycle races. Bednar described them as “pretty heavy duty,” so there will be little chance of a tricycle collapse this year.
While OSF has made slight changes to Traks, fans of the spring event can rest assured knowing that the classic games will be on the schedule, such as mud games, egg toss, dodgeball and tricycle races.
While this is Bednar’s final year of Traks, the OSF president reflected on why she enjoys Traks as a whole.
“You…see students who never interact with each other, having a great time together. Athletes are hanging out with non-athletes, and people in social clubs are interacting with people in other social clubs.”
Bednar encouraged every student to get involved.
“There are people who have never done anything athletic out there, and there are people who could probably be in the Olympics out there. Everyone should just do it for the fun of it,” she said.
OSF extended the registration deadline, so teams may still register until April 2 at 5 p.m., understanding that late registration does not guarantee them a t-shirt in time for Traks.
– By Mattie Alexander, staff writer
