Preparing to school or be schooled, more than 90 University mengathered outside the Pete Maravich Assembly Center Thursdayafternoon for some serious video gaming.
EA Sports convened on campus mid-morning Thursday, inviting 128students to play this year’s version of NCAA Football Challenge, avideo game featuring the current rosters of top college teams.
Equipped with turntables, prize giveaways and preview stationsof 2005 EA games, the single elimination tournament began at 3 p.m.in a white tent outside the PMAC. All participants eitherregistered online prior to the tournament or on the spot.
Scott Piglia, a chemical engineering junior, won the tournamentand has been invited the Championship Final in Las Vegas on Dec.11.
“It was interesting,” Piglia said. “I didn’t even plan on going,because I have a final during Las Vegas.”
But he said hopefully his landscape architecture professorCharles Fryling will let him reschedule it.
Piglia said he is not sure how he won.
“I haven’t played that game in a long time,” he said. “I justplay that game during football season.”
Jay Kennedy, a coordinator with EA Sports, said the crew istraveling on a 20-week tour promoting the NFL video game, MaddenChallenge, and its college counterpart, NCAA Challenge.
Kennedy said they will visit 16 college campuses and 32 citiesfor the NFL game. After LSU, they will go to New Orleans andHouston for the Madden Challenge, then to the University of Texasat Austin.
After only a few minutes of heated play, some sweaty competitorsalready lost their first round. But everybody seemed to maintainhigh spirits.
“It’s awesome,” Ahsan Shah, a economics senior, said. “Iregistered a month ago.”
But Shah, with free t-shirt in hand and a big grin on his face,said he lost in the first round. To win, he said, you have to begood, but mostly just have to have a lot of luck.
With a laugh, when one of Shah’s friends asked if he would beattending class after the loss, he declined.
“No way, I’m too depressed to go to class,” he joked.
Before he began the tournament, Keith Claverie, a masscommunication sophomore, said he thought he could win the wholething.
He also said he thinks the University is a great place to comebecause its such a great college town.
But for Ben Lawson, a management freshman, this tournament isserious business.
After winning round one, Lawson looked to his next potentialopponents playing, and casually nodded his head saying he couldbeat either one of them.
“I play this game too much,” he said.
Lawson said he plays at least three hours a day. He said hestudies “sometimes.”