Willy Week jacks reach outside of the box

By Sarah Rutledge     3/13/08 7:00pm

Although spring break may have allowed students a relaxing respite from school, Willy Week, which began Monday, more than made up for the previous week's lack of activity. Mock Beer-Bike, the Beer Debates and Willy's Picnic may have enhanced the Willy Week experience, but colleges were the real stars of Willy Week with the many jacks they executed across campus.Late Sunday night, members of Martel College sprayed WD-40 in trashcans filled with water balloons at Brown College to pop the balloons.

Brown President John Land said he was surprised that Martel was so quick with their jack.

"It was pretty clever, actually, because it was midnight on [Monday] morning," Land, a Brown junior, said. "They put us on the defensive."

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Monday night, Martel students walked through the Jones College hallways late at night every hour, a tradition Martel does every other year.

"We were waking up people on the hour, every hour," Martel Jacks Coordinator Matt Drwenski said. "We would march, a line of people with pots and pans, shouting, '1 o'clock, and all is well,' '2 o'clock, and all is well,' and we stopped at 3 o'clock."

Consequently, a Jones student called Rice University Police Department for a noise complaint, and the police told the Martel group to stop the jack.

Drwenski said the noise complaint was unreasonable given that it was Willy Week.

"On Willy Week, you have to expect to get woken up in the middle of the night," Drwenski said. "Don't call the police. Wear earplugs. If you call the police on people, then the jacks will be over."

Hanszen College's first jack was not against another college, but was on the grove fence facing Hanszen. Hanszen Jacks Coordinator Evan Miller said Hanszenites inspired by their Beer-Bike theme, "Dr. Brews: Slammed I Am," spray-painted the fence with slogans, pictures and poetry. However, he said the artwork was short-lived, because someone was offended by the graffiti and it had to be taken down Tuesday morning.

On Monday night, Hanszen hung PVC pipes that spelled out HFH from the roof of the Wiess College commons in its first jack on another college.

That night, Will Rice College decorated the Sid Rich College commons with objects in Will Rice colors. Twenty Will Ricers stapled 550 paper cups together to form "WFR" on the Sid commons floor and filled each cup with water.

Will Rice Jacks Coordinator Will Fischer said the cups held 50 gallons of water altogether. Since the cups were stapled together, it was difficult to move them off the floor.

Fischer, a junior, said the jack was well-executed.

"It went very well and was relatively harmless," Fischer said.

Fischer said someone with Will Rice allegiance also installed randomly beeping sirens in the Baker College commons.

Baker Jacks Coordinator Matt Taylor said the commons were supposed to be off limits because of the annual Baker Shake production. Taylor, a sophomore, said Baker did not approve the jack.

"I feel like it's been done before," Taylor said. "It's not very creative."

On Tuesday night, Will Ricers installed a sign in the Brown College parking lot which read "No Parking Between These Signs" with a siren inside.

Land said members of Brown were not impressed by the jack.

"It was pretty pathetic," Land said. "No one really knows what happened because it was taken down really quickly, but now we have the sign in our commons."

Will Rice also installed sirens in the Lovett College commons. They hid three sirens in the ceiling tiles and tied one to a tree outside.

Lovett sophomore Spencer Johnson said the sirens were irritating but that people at Lovett were able to ignore them.

"We were able to find all of the alarms within 30 minutes or so," Johnson said.

Meanwhile, Martel members jacked the Will Rice old-section common bathrooms by removing the side walls in the stalls. Drwenski said the stalls looked normal from the front but the Martel group removed the walls dividing individual toilets. Drwenski said he expected this jack had increased the sense of community at Will Rice.

Fischer said several Will Ricers thought it was clever though some were not amused.

However, in removing the dividing walls from the stalls, the Martel group also removed the support for the front of the stalls. Fischer said the front of the stalls caved in just hours later.

"This is not [Martel's] fault or direct doing, but it's an unfortunate side effect." Fischer said.

He said most colleges have a budget for these circumstances and Will Rice and Martel will work something out.

Earlier in the week, Jones placed saran wrap and baby oil on the Martel bike racks as well as on their stacked chairs in the commons and the commons entrance. Jones Jacks Coordinator Rachel Orosco said this made it difficult to remove the saran wrap.

On Wednesday morning, Johnson said someone, likely a Hanszenite, did an unauthorized jack by pouring syrup on the steps, elevator lobbies and doors at Lovett. The syrup on the steps spelled "HFH."

At lunch on Wednesday, about 50 Martelians dressed in red capes imitating Spartans in the film 300 went to Lovett to eat as much of their food as they could. Drwenski said Martel wanted to assert its dominance as a Greek college, since it was named after Greek donor Speros Martel and Lovett's Beer-Bike theme is based on 300.

"We outlined our muscles in Sharpies so we looked like Spartans," Drwenski said. "We took as much food as we could, ate [all of Lovett's] cookies and quoted lines from the movie, like, 'Tonight, we dine in hell,' meaning Lovett.'"

Drwenski said those from Lovett seemed impressed by Martel's lunch jack.

"Someone from Lovett asked, 'Can I be part of your college?'" Drwenski said.

Johnson said he enjoyed the jack in theory.

"We thought it was really clever, but it was unfortunate that they ate all the cookies," Johnson said.

On Wednesday night, Martel had planned to go around campus, switching the keys on computer keyboards in computer labs around campus and at the colleges to spell "Martel."

Also on Wednesday night, members of Sid Richardson College painted their faces and ran around campus in dark clothes as part of their orc raid.

Miller said he e-mailed Hanszen to throw water balloons at the running Sid Rich students.

Wiess College planned to jack Hanszen Thursday night by putting hair on the doors around Hanszen, thus turning Harry Hanszen into Hairy Hanszen. Wiess Jacks Coordinator Austin Gay said Wiess did not experience as much enthusiasm for the Willy Week jacks as it did for the Orientation Week jacks.

Fischer said Will Rice planned to put sirens in the tree in Martel's quad on Wednesday or Thursday. The sirens, which he had planned to chain and padlock to the tree, beeped for four seconds out of every 70 and lasted 75 hours.

Orosco said Jones planned to move all the north college silverware to the Jones commons so that Brown and Martel members would have to undergo a walk of shame on their way to the Jones commons, complete with heckling and booing by Jonesians.

Fischer said Will Rice planned to string eight miles of fishing line around campus in a spiderweb on Thursday night. He said non-Will Ricers were welcome to join in if they did not mind switching allegiances for a night.

Johnson said Lovett planned to build a wall between Will Rice and Lovett Thursday night to block Sid from its most direct path to the rest of campus.

Also Thursday night, Martel was considering, in accordance with its Beer-Bike theme "Ashby High Life: The Champagne of Towers," to jack Sid with Ashby High Rise signs from the surrounding neighborhood.

Miller said Hanszen planned to mock Wiess' likeness to a hotel by placing copies of USA Today and hotel receipts outside their rooms along with orange juice, mimicking a typical continental breakfast.

Miller said Hanszen also planned to string ropes between the buildings in the academic quad from the roof of Fondren Library and Sewall to hang things over Willy's Statue.

Taylor said Baker planned to set off the alarms Friday morning in Will Rice's long hall, which lies between Baker and Will Rice.

While Gay, a freshman, said he noticed decreased interest in jacks since O-week at Wiess, Drwenski said he has noticed more enthusiasm from Martel freshmen this year.

"People look forward to jacks, especially if they haven't done them before," Drwenski said.

Fischer said Will Rice has been planning jacks since January while the other colleges typically start planning a week before Willy Week.

"We stepped up our game a lot," Fischer said. "We have enthusiastic freshmen, and we got our [jacks] budget up from $150 to $500 this year. I hope the trend will continue, so the jacks next year will be as good or better than this year.

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