Springtime in Harrison means flowers, tornado sirens, and for about the last five years, it has also meant the occasional hail of spongy nerf bullets in a Nerf gun ambush.
Harrison Nerf Wars, a student-run team-based Nerf gun tournament, started up again early this March, and it’s more exciting and intense than ever. Nerf Wars have been an ongoing event for the past several years where seniors gather their buddies and team up to play against other teams, including underclassmen. It’s a fun game that Harrison and Diamond Oaks students get to participate in outside of school. As of this week (April 15th-19th), four teams are still in the game. Next week the final two teams will play, and the week of April 29th-May 3rd, the winner of the loser’s bracket will play the winner for all the money and glory.
To start off, students make a team, which needs six people who agree that they’re ready for this intense tournament. The team registers and pays their entrance fee. The brackets are then released each week by the game runners, and each team’s job is to eliminate all the players of the team they are up against. If your team hits all the other players before all your players are hit, then you move on to the next week’s competition. If you lose the first round, you get moved to the loser’s bracket. If you win this bracket, you can earn your way back into the winner’s bracket. When you’re eliminating another player, you have to capture a picture with the person you eliminated and send it to the Nerf Wars Instagram page, which has all the updates for players and spectators to see. However, it’s best to just record a video of the hit, just in case someone claims to not be hit.
Just like other games, there are rules. First and foremost, no playing on school grounds. It’d be too easy for teams to win, and it would distract from the learning environment. Secondly, there are places that have requested to opt out of the game, such as Kroger, so you cannot play the game on their property. If you’re caught doing so, your team will be disqualified. The rules also state that there are no entering personal places without permission, whether it’s your locked car, your home, etc. On school nights the curfew is 10pm, and on the weekends it’s 1am. You cannot try to eliminate someone past these times, or you will be disqualified. There are also grace periods before and after work, so you can get to work safely. However, the grace period after your shift is only 2 minutes. After that it’s game on!
The game is run by an anonymous senior and dues of $5 per person ($30 per team) are collected from each participating team via Venmo. The winning team then receives the pot of dues at the end of the game. The anonymous game runner reported that “There are 31 teams [playing this year], so we raised about $930.” Split six ways, that could make a fun start to summer, even after the game runners take a portion for their work.
Another fun add-on to the game is bounties. To help your team win their weekly challenge, you can set bounties on people you’re going against. Bounties start at $10. Once the bounty has been set, it’s free game for anyone participating in Nerf wars to eliminate the person–not just the team playing against them. The person who collects the bounty by eliminating the target gets the money. If the target survives the week, the money goes into the pot.
The person in charge also created a loser’s bracket for players to participate in. Within the loser’s bracket, teams who did not make it to the next round get to compete against each other to win money as well. When asked if Nerf wars is a positive activity, the gamemaster said,” I believe it is! It’s a good way to have fun and get your mind off of school for a little and have fun with friends.”
Nerf wars is a fun activity for Harrison students to participate in, just remember to be safe!
While a recent car accident was at first thought to be a result of kids playing this game, it turned out to not be related. Good luck to the remaining teams!
