Cody Shepard/The Veritas News
From left, Andrew Kohr, Jay Govoni, Nathan Mann, and Brent Neely hold their second council meeting, at Chipotle Mexican Grill, on Friday, Oct. 11, 2013. Not pictured: Brady Smith, administrative assistant.
Non-athletic students have a tough decision to make when it comes to intramural sports. Some decide to play and willingly embarrass themselves, while some students sit out to avoid laughter at his or her own expense.
And others join Team Fatty.
“When Brent and I were freshmen, we were sitting around in Tyler Adcox’s room one day talking about intramural soccer because sign-ups were up,” senior Andrew Kohr, vice president of Team Fatty, said. “Tyler said, ‘it’s way too competitive,’ and someone said we should make a non-athletic soccer team and the name Team Fatty got thrown out there.”
Now in its third year, Team Fatty is an official club at ENC.
“It started out as a joke last spring,” Kohr said. “Then, we started throwing around the idea, what if we are an actual ENC club?”
Team Fatty asked team member and Resident Director Jay Govoni to be the club’s adviser. When he agreed, Neely and Kohr filled out an application with Team Fatty President Nathan Mann, and they were granted charter.
“Part of me always wanted to be president of Team Fatty,” Mann said. “I may not seem like a fatty on the outside, but I’m a fatty at heart. I knew I had a strong council backing me up, so there was no reason not to do it.”
Govoni had no reservations about becoming the club’s adviser.
“I’m excited that Nathan is the president because he’s not a senior, so there’s a chance for the club to have life next year,” Govoni said. “I have the opportunity to work with some great guys on campus that have a heart for serving others.”
Although the members were not serious about becoming an official club at first, Team Fatty has set goals this year to help end hunger in Massachusetts, and even right in Quincy.
At the homecoming street fair on Saturday, Team Fatty is selling an advance on club T-shirts. Almost all of the profits will go toward an organization, to be determined, that helps provide food for those in need. Any profit the club keeps will go toward buying more T-shirts.
Team Fatty is also selling fat caricature drawings at the street fair. People can pay $1 to get a drawing of them as a “fatty.”
Later in the year, the council is hoping to hold an event similar to the Finkbeiner Fast, but calling it a Fatty Fast. Students would be able to donate the money that would go to their meal in the Caf to an organization of Team Fatty’s choice. The event is tentative at this point.
The club also wants to hold a food eating contest this year with the entry fee being a nonperishable food item.
“The entrance fee would be something like a nonperishable food item and then we would donate those to a food bank,” Kohr said. “A good majority of things we do are going toward either feeding the hungry or promoting non-athleticism, which, in my mind, go hand-in-hand.”
The council is currently looking into a partnership with End Hunger New England, an organization that packages healthy meals for 25 cents per person or $1 for a family of four.
“We don’t like being hungry,” Brent Neely, Team Fatty chaplain, said, “neither should you.”
Although Team Fatty is 0-27 in three intramural soccer seasons, the club has high hopes of making an impact in the community they live in by providing for those in need.