Every year, Longwood students gather on an open field with trash cans full of watered-down paint. They fill their cups with it and throw it on each other in an all out battle of red vs. green. To outsiders, this may seem strange, but to a Lancer, it is a time-honored tradition known as Color Wars.
Color Wars is hosted each year by the Geist Chapter of Mortar Board as the kick off to Oktoberfest Weekend.
This year's Color Wars took place at 4:00 p.m. Friday afternoon on Iler Field. Red Class, made up of sophomores and seniors, gathered on the side near Curry and Frazer, while Green Class, consisting of freshmen and juniors, gathered on the side near the heating plant. Between the classes, various mascots and body-painted banner wavers paraded around and rallied their allies. The red robot, for instance, was a big hit.
Elwood the horse, Longwood's official mascot, also made an appearance. He waved banners for both sides, obviously not wanting to choose favorites.
Color Wars is perhaps one of Longwood's most popular spirit events, said Co-chair of Mortar Board's Color Wars Committee Sarah Bendrick. "Students create and decorate shirts for this day, they run up and down their side with flags and costumes, and they create chants for their class color. Every student out there on Iler Field has such as passion for Longwood and there is nothing better than seeing them all come together."
To start the event, Longwood's chapter of Phi Mu Alpha sang the alma mater, and then the preliminary games were played, including tug of war, won by Green Class, and contests in which students had to create rotundas, one with paint and one with their bodies.
Color wars went smoothly, as usual, with one major difference. In addition to the usual red and green paint, each side had blue. Bendrick said,"We wanted to do something different, but had to be careful not to tamper with the red and green traditions too much. The blue paint was more or less a way to unify the two competing class colors."
Ashleigh White, the other Co-chair of the Color Wars committee, agreed. "The addition of blue paint was new this year. We know that Color Wars is a competition between the Red Class and the Green Class, but we thought it would be a cool idea to bring the one color that unites us together: blue."
Though they were a little nervous about altering a tradition like Color Wars, people were generally pleased with the addition. This made the shirts produced in the battle even more impressive and colorful, and students realized that it had a great amount of unifying significance. "Hopefully it will be a new tradition that will continue," said White.
So, when the word was given, students ran across the open field at each other, hitting friends and fellow Lancers with red, green or blue paint. In the end, both classes came out soaked in paint, as planned. Red Class was deemed victorious, but everyone had a great time. White summed it up well when she said, "Even though we are separated through red and green, we stillhare the blue in our Longwood blood."
