Logan Myhre-

It is a well-known fact around the UWStout Campus, and the rest of the state, that Stout’s sports are hardly the pride and joy of the campus community. Anything involving a ball, racket, puck, club or coordination is sure to throw the university for a loop. So in an effort to finally be the best at a sport, Stout created a competitive shoe-tying team.

The rules of this new sport are quite simple. Two teams of five compete relay style to see who can tie their shoes the fastest. Most types of shoes are permitted as long as they have laces. All competitors start on one knee with their left foot in front of them. The first in line ties their left shoe as quickly as possible and then switches feet. The shoe must be tied “Bunny Ears” style. After the first teammate is done with both feet, they high five the person next to them, and then that competitor starts. When all five competitors have finished tying, the race is over.

Stout was very confident that this was finally their time to be the best, especially considering no one else in the conference had started a shoe-tying team yet. The university scheduled a shoe-tying tournament on Monday, January 16, wholeheartedly expecting no one to show up.

View from the floor inside the ring of the silent, empty bullfight arena in Ronda, Spain.

UWWhitewater heard about the tournament and took the opportunity to win yet another sports trophy. They were the only other team to show up to the tournament, and they eviscerated the competition.

“We thought we had this in the bag. We went in too cocky and we got beat because of it. We didn’t practice nearly enough. Our hope moving forward is to recruit some fresh new talent for next year and keep progressing as a team,” said Head Coach Laura Baker.

To add insult to injury, a fight broke out between Stout and Whitewater’s mascots, Blaze the Blue Devil and Willie Warhawk. Sadly, this was yet another competition Stout ended up losing.

Blaze appeared to be mostly unharmed, coming away from the scuffle with just a few cuts and bruises, and a bit of a hurt ego.

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