Legacy

Imagine strolling through the Quad after the last class of the day. Though it’s a crisp fall day, your heart starts pounding and a warming sensation comes across your body as you see a groaning, undead mob approach. At first glance, you may wonder if your eyes are playing tricks. After rubbing them, it’s clear you’re not hallucinating. So now what to do, fight or flight? This may sound surprising, but Adam Rabalais, his brother Matt Rabalais and friend Tommy Nichols have brought this surreal day to campus for the last three years.

Zombie Day was created after the group was disappointed with the University and the Baton Rouge community’s Halloween spirit.

“When we think of Halloween, we think decorations … swarms of kids in costumes … You don’t see that anymore,” said Adam Rabalais, graphic design alumnus.

“[We may] be trying to recreate a Halloween that never actually existed,” joked Matt Rabalais, painting and drawing senior.

To create the holiday spirit, the boys decided to treat campus with a Halloween trick. Three years later, Zombie Day serves as a creative way for students to celebrate. Participants gather on the Parade Ground and march through campus in a huddle of groaning zombies.

“We kind of cover everything in the heart of campus,” Adam Rabalais said. “[Walking past] the library is really fun because the entire back is glass … and we have people run and look.”

The brothers call Zombie Day, a “light prank,” but there are rules to ensure safety and fun for everyone. Some rules include: no running, no touching on-lookers, participants must be sober and blood from a flesh wound can’t dribble on the sidewalk.

Between 50 and 150 zombies participate in the annual event. With a mob this large, there are some interesting traits and characters. Adam and Matt Rabalais explained how the “sea of zombies” gravitates towards a pedestrian all at once, with increasingly loud groaning.

Matt Rabalais said the “crowd gets a mind of its own.” Acting as the mob, arms outstretched in a zombie voice the group says, “Pe – eeeee – ople.”

“It’s kind of a contradiction,” his brother added, since zombies don’t have “minds.”

The two said each year there’s a zombie that stands out from the rest.

A Michael Jackson “Thriller” zombie — dressed in the red tracksuit donned by Jackson in the music video — once brought his own stereo and performed the dance in its entirety throughout the night. They also mentioned another exceptional zombie, in fact the youngest Zombie Day participant ever.

This 1-year-old zombie may have been carried through the zombie walk but still knew how to get into character. Matt and Adam Rabalais were impressed with the baby’s growling.

“[The baby] was a trained little zombie,” Matt Rabalais joked.

When asked about his costume, Adam Rabalais said he wears a different themed outfit every year. Matt Rabalais, however, said he’s always his “zombie self,” as it is, of course, “the most realistic costume.”

Though some may feel a herd of brain-eating zombies is a troubling sight, Ann Harris, theater senior, claims she has seen something creepier. Freeze The Quad is the Feb. 19 event to which Harris is referring. Here, students and faculty froze in unison for five minutes in the quad.

“The eeriest part was when the bell tower started ringing,” Harris said about the bell sounding over a suspended mob.

Freeze the Quad was the brainchild of Harris, Rebecca Stewart and Casey Miller. Harris was inspired by flash mobs she studied in a theater class, such as Improv Everywhere and the Guerilla Girls.

Harris, Stewart and Miller had two weeks to plan Freeze the Quad and used Facebook as their only publicity tool.

The event started out invitation only, but as interest grew, Harris felt she had to open it to the public. By Feb. 19 there were 269 people “attending” the event and more than 1,000 “maybe attendings.”

“It’s such a testament to social networking and social media,” Harris said.

Of the army of freezers, there were a few that stood out to Harris and students who passed by.

She remembered a boy who brought “a Lord of the Flies style” conch shell. He blew into the shell when it was time to freeze and again to mark the end. Others froze hopping onto a bike, high fiving and an injured student froze dropping one of his crutches.

Harris, who froze with a video camera, remembered the various reactions pedestrians had to the living statues. Some on-lookers tried to rouse frozen participants, while others tried to assist students who dropped items as they froze. Harris was impressed with the participants and feels they did a great job holding their poses.

Since Freeze the Quad, Harris, with the help of Stewart and Miller, has created That Improv Group at LSU — which in the plural spells T-I-Gers. TIG is not an official organization and is run via Facebook. There are 120 Facebook members that have taken part in several shenanigans on campus since Freeze the Quad.

The Where’s Waldo? Where’s Wanda? event on April Fool’s Day consisted of one TIGer dressed as Waldo from the children’s book series and another as his female counterpart Wanda. Disguised in the familiar red and white stripes, pranksters lurked around campus and were approached by 56 TIGers and students who knew the secret phrase “Are you lost?”

The latest TIG gag, a spontaneous game of dodgeball, kicked off the fall semester on Aug. 31. Perfect weather attracted many students to the Parade Ground on the second Monday of classes, but only around 25 students were actually acting as agent TIGers. When the bell tower struck noon, TIGers took to the field and waited for the end of the alma mater to start.

The upper classmen wore gold while the lower classmen wore purple. One member refereed the game, sporting a standard striped shirt, cleats and whistle. The players brought comically shaped balls and plush toys to use as grenades.

Harris said there was “definitely some smack talking” and that things got “heated,” because of high stakes on the game. If the Gold team lost Harris, the team captain, would walk around campus on Sept. 1 dressed in a curly blonde afro and tacky costume.

If the Purple team lost, captain Paul Leinlang, theater performance sophomore, would dress like the Teletubby, Tinky Winky.

Harris said she felt a mixture of “dread and excitement,” when she had to wear her “get up,” to her Tuesday classes.

Though the “babies” defeated the “old farts,” Harris still feels the battle was epic. When speaking of the intensity of the game, Harris said at least one TIGer was hit in his “special bits.” Harris said the match, as apposed to the freeze, was less about drawing a crowd and more for TIGers themselves.

“[Improv] doesn’t have to be ‘Whose Line is it Anyway,’” Harris said. “It’s kind of an adrenaline rush because no matter what you do, it’s going to be a complete surprise.”

Harris has several antics in mind for TIG, including a dancing homage to Michael Jackson.

Harris also has the dream of starting a Southeastern Conference Freeze, where University students and those at other SEC schools all freeze simultaneously.

While keeping an eye out for TIG’s stunts, you may be distracted during finals by nearly nude joggers. This post-finals moment of euphoria is the Undie Run.

University alumnus Antonio Christina is the creator of the biannual LSU Undie Run. The University of California, Los Angeles’ Undie Run inspired him to bring the event to LSU.

The first Undie Run was held the last Saturday of finals in 2006 and has marked the end of each fall and spring semester since. There are usually around 100 scantily clad runners.

“[It’s a way] to blow off steam from class,” Christina said.

He said the Undie Run has a “good atmosphere” and students should feel free to participate because runners can donate clothes to the Battered Women’s Shelter of Baton Rouge.

The run starts at the fountain in the Quad and ends at Mike the Tiger’s cage. Christina joked that there was a detour through the Indian Mounds that was cut from the route one year because of out of shape students.

“Not everybody was pretty,” joked Joseph Harvey, landscape architecture sophomore, who participated in the spring Undie Run.

Harvey felt the Undie Run was a “really fun” way to show school spirit. He also made some lasting memories that evening with his friends.

“My friend had underwear with smiley faces on it and wore a big yellow hat … it was really funny to watch him run down the street,” Harvey said.

Christina said the date of the Undie Run will change this fall. It will now be the Saturday before finals. He doesn’t feels this will hurt attendance as the Undie Run gets “crazier each semester.”

Christina feels the event is a “new LSU tradition.” Harris and the Rabalais brothers share this feeling of school spirit and providing an escape for students.

“We are … advocates for never growing up. [People say] ‘Oh we gotta study’ which is important … [but acting] like you did in elementary school is very important,” Adam Rabalais said.

Illustrations by Caroline Boudreaux