Cleveland, TN–Alpha Gamma Chi, a Lee University social service club, will be attempting to break a Guinness World Record for the longest flag football game ever played. The group hopes to raise funds for the People for Care and Learning (PCL) “Build a City” project.
The current record for the longest played football game is 24 hours. The men of Alpha Gamma Chi, or “Chi” for short, are shooting for 50 hours of straight play in their game, being dubbed “The Gridiron.” The club’s presenting sponsor is MurMaid Mattress, a local manufacturer of mattresses, which has partnered with PCL in the Build a City (BAC) project. The company plans to build a mattress factory near Andong to help provide jobs for local residents.
The game is scheduled to begin on April 4 at 5:00 p.m. and continue until April 6 at 7:00 p.m. It will be held on a local middle school field adjacent to the Lee campus and the final hour (April 6 from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m.) will be billed as the final event of Lee University’s annual “Lee Day” recruitment weekend.
This is not the first time the Greek club has gone after a world record. In 1985 and again in 2005, club members sought the title for longest played softball game, according to Guinness. Both times the club succeeded and their accomplishment was noted in the annual volume.
“When they played in the (first) softball game, it was before our time,” current Chi member Taylor Trotter told the Cleveland Daily Banner. “We sort of casually talked about shooting for another record-breaking game.” Talk remained until members found a mission to shoot for — helping People for Care and Learning build a city in Cambodia.
Fred Garmon, executive director of PCL and an alumnus of Alpha Gamma Chi, spoke to his former club and shared the BAC project. As part of the project, Cleveland, Tennessee and Phnom Penh Cambodia are now Sister Cities. The BAC project is taking place in Andong, just outside of Phnom Penh.
The club’s goal is to raise $86,000 to build a marketplace and health clinic. The marketplace will be split between a wet area for vegetables and fruits and a dry area for goods like clothes and textiles. Trotter said the club hopes to raise the money through fundraising, donations and sponsorships.
Organizers of the event announced levels of sponsorship which include: Game Winner: $10,000; Hail-Mary: $5,000-$9,999; Touchdown: $2,500-$4,999; Field Goal: $1,000; Two-Point Conversion: $500; and First Down: $100.
“We don’t want this to be just an Alpha Gamma Chi thing,” Trotter stated. We do not have enough manpower to do that. What we have been shooting for is getting other Greek clubs involved as well as residential life and Student Leadership Council.”
There are currently 33 members in Chi, 28 of who will be actively participating in the 50-hour game. There will be a strict schedule for the players to manage their eating, sleeping, and restroom breaks. According to Guinness rules, for every hour of play, participants get five minutes of rest. Those minutes can be accumulated up to 30 minutes of rest.
More information about the event can be found by visiting the Facebook page at www.facebook.com/thegridiron2013 [1] or by emailing thegridiron2013@hotmail.com. Donations can be made at the event’s website: http://whiteboard.is/gridiron [2]. Money can also be donated to the project by texting “build” to 20222.
For more information on the Build a City project, visit the People for Care and Learning website at www.peopleforcare.org [3].
–Cameron Fisher, Faith News Network