October 6, 1998

Pamela Formyduval
Campus Life Editor

It was a comfortable Saturday evening.  Jason, Bo and Brent were waiting outside the stadium field house gate.

A guy waiting for them lets them in and shakes hands with each of them. They look ahead, and before them lies the football field.

As Jason, Bo and Brent walk onto the field, an overwhelming feeling takes over them as they look out into the crowd.

They are greeted by the referees who will be officiating the football game about to take place.

Twenty minutes before kick-off, the P.A. system comes on.

“Will everybody direct your attention to the 50-yard line,” the announcer says.

As the three guys walk to the center of the field carrying a football, the head referee meets them.

A short speech is given about the 14-year history of their event and the money raised this year.

The football is then handed to the referee and everyone shakes hands.  Applause from the crowd erupts.

For a brief moment of time, Jason, Bo and Brent were part of history.

Jason A. Carter, a senior from Winston-Salem, was one of those guys on the field to present the football for Sigma Nu’s Gameball Run for Cancer.

Carter, IFC President and former Sigma Nu President, has been a member of Sigma Nu since 1994 and has run the gameball for the past four years.

The gameball run is not a national Sigma Nu event; on the contrary, it is unique to ASU’s Sigma Nu.

Carter said the gameball run started in the second year that Sigma Nu was here at Appalachian.

Most Greek organizations have a charity they are affiliated with.  Sigma Nu does not, but wanted to find a way to help out anyway.

This is the 14th year the gameball run has been held to help raise money for the American Cancer Society.

Carter said that every penny raised goes to the American Cancer Society.

Sigma Nu’s goal this year was to raise $8,000.  Currently, they are almost at $8,000. In some years past, Sigma Nu has raised as much as $10,000.

“It has varied from the beginning years from a couple thousand dollars to now about $8,000 a year.  Over the 14 years, we’ve been doing this, we’ve raised just over $80,000,” Carter said.

The idea of the gameball run is to get businesses to donate money for all the members of Sigma Nu to run the gameball down the mountain to Winston-Salem the day before the Wake Forest/Appalachian football game.

This year’s gameball run started at the Jones House on King Street at 7 a.m. and ended in Winston-Salem around 6 p.m.

ASU usually allows Sigma Nu to use two vans to carry the guys who are running. The members sign up for different shifts during the day.

“One van load of guys will take off from Boone, and each guy will run about a mile at a time, running to meet the van.  We keep letting guys off the van to run until that shift’s done and another van load of guys come.  It just keeps running like that all day,” Carter said.

The gameball run is not only a good opportunity for the Sigma Nu members to work together, but it’s also a chance to do something they all enjoy.

“The gameball run is a good community service, and it gives us a good name. It’s a fun philanthropy project to do, because everybody wants to do the gameball run and everybody looks forward to running it,” Carter said.

Not only is the gameball run fun for Sigma Nu members, but it gives the organization recognition they might not otherwise get.

Carter said the North Carolina Governor’s Office has declared that day North Carolina Sigma Nu Gameball Run Day.  Thus, they get a proclamation for the day every year.

Interaction with the sponsors has also helped Sigma Nu.

“It’s just one of those events in which you mention gameball run and it’s synonymous with Sigma Nu.  The run is for a good thing, and people really support us,” Carter said.

Last year, Appalachian didn’t play Wake Forest, so Sigma Nu ran from Johnson City, Tenn., to Boone for the ETSU/Appalachian football game.

With this year’s game at Wake Forest being the last in the series, Carter said Sigma Nu is going to have to start getting creative.

“We’ve actually made contact with the Carolina Panthers, and they like the idea. They look for this kind of community service stuff,” Carter said.

Sigma Nu wants to keep the gameball run on a large scale.  Wake Forest was the biggest school Appalachian played (WF is I-A and ASU is I-AA).

Carter says that if the Panthers don’t work out, the ETSU game might be a possibility.

With each member of Sigma Nu getting to run the gameball, each will have a sense of getting to be a part of something greater than themselves.

Brent H. Messick, a senior from Winston-Salem, was chairman of the Sigma Nu Gameball Run this year.

This was his third year participating in the event.

Messick said that being a part of the gameball run was physically demanding, but people provided support all the way.

“It felt good to run the ball, because as word got out, people recognized what we were doing and honked at us along the way,” Messick said.

He said the benefits of being a part of the run were not only becoming familiar with the business structure of the “real world” from being the chairman, but also learning how raising the money for charity affects people.

“It feels good to know I am making a difference in somebody’s life,” Messick said.

In raising money for the American Cancer Society, Sigma Nu has made a lasting impact on themselves and the community as a whole.

Choosing to give of one’s self and time can be the most rewarding experience a person will have.

It seems the members of Sigma Nu have found this in their annual gameball run.