Penn State Smeal Wins 2009 Duke MBA Games!

On the weekend of March 27th, nearly 20 Penn State MBAs traveled to Durham, North Carolina to participate in the 21st Annual Duke MBA Games sponsored by the Fuqua School of Business. The Games is a light-hearted sports competition involving teams from 16 top business schools. Through fundraising events, corporate sponsorship, and donations from participating schools, the Duke MBA Games has raised close to $2 million over the years for Special Olympics North Carolina.

After a long car ride down on Friday morning (thanks to Sheetz for providing gas cards!), we spent the evening at Fuqua’s impressive business building meeting the other teams and competing in the weekend’s first event, skits. Our skit was a parody on Beyonce’s hit “All The Single Ladies”, featuring a chorus directed as MBA job recruiters that went “if you liked it then you should’ve made a job offer…”. Although we didn’t place in the skit event, we definitely entertained the crowd. We spent the rest of the evening socializing at Tyler’s Taproom in downtown Durham and made sure to head to bed early as the events continued at 8am the next morning.

Saturday’s events on Duke’s campus were both challenging and fun. We also had 2 Special Olympians, Steve and John, compete with our team in various events throughout the day. We had a great time getting to know these two. Steve had amazing accuracy and the soccer shoot and John couldn’t miss a basketball shot!

After a tiring day of crab walking, tug-of-warring, eating, etc., Smeal was able to win three events which positioned us in the hunt for the championship. First place finishes included:
1. Bean Bag Toss – Marcia Murphy and Jensen Beeler
2. Dizzy Bat Relay – Tim Mitch, Andy Duffett, Ryan Sheetz and Matt Michaux
3. Business Suit Swimming Relay – Jenny Moerschbacher, Joe Molinelli, Kacey Barnes, and Bob Kalantari

We also placed 4th in the basketball shoot (Kacey Barnes and Joe Molinelli) to score a point. What really put us over the top was placing 1st in fundraising! We raised $3,480 to win first in the fundraising competition. The totals were announced during a dinner at Fuqua on Saturday night, and this event allowed us to pull ahead of Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business to win the championship. Dell donated $1,000 and Sheetz donated $1,500 to our fundraising efforts which was very much appreciated.

Overall, the MBA Games was a great bonding experience for our group, and we are excited to have Smeal added as the 21st team on the beloved trophy (which was on display at the closing party Saturday night). After scoring only 1 point at the 2008 Games, we definitely made a name for Smeal this year. The Big Ten made an impressive showing with Ohio State and Michigan tying for third place.

Credit is due to the Fuqua MBAs who were so accommodating all weekend. Again, we’d also like to thank our corporate sponsors, Dell and Sheetz, as well as friends and family of the Smeal MBA Program for coming through on the fundraising event. Finally, a special thank you to Andy Duffett and Ryan Sheetz who were our patient Smeal organizers for the event.

Please check out Dell’s University Relations blog detailing their involvement in the event: http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/education/archive/2009/04/14/dell-university-relations-teams-with-the-penn-state-mba-team-for-duke-mba-games.aspx

-Jenny Moerschbacher
Smeal MBA Class of 2009