By Bob Lindquist
Illustration by Jim Roldan

Give a kid a ball and she'll make up a game. Give sophomore Danielle Boutin 94 cents and she’ll buy a bouncy ball at Wal-mart so she and her friends can play keep-away late at night on the quad. “It’s a wonderful way to de-stress,” she says.

All kinds of games are played on campus, from the rough and tumble to the cerebral. Intercollegiate, intramural, and club sports represent a major share, but games span the campus from classroom to the Monastery (where whist, Rummy-O, and cribbage are favored). They include card, board, and electronic games—both traditional and original.

Chess and paintball are popular enough to be organized into student clubs. Members of the Saint Anselm Gaming Association (SAGA) play all kinds of games, hold tournaments, and take field trips to arcades. Chess, Quiz Bowl, Texas Hold ‘em, and the popular Anselmian Idol contest are just a few of the tournaments held on campus.

Texas Hold’em is, hands down, the most popular card game among students while Halo and Halo 2 are the favorite console games. Other popular console and computer games include Dance Dance Revolution, Bejeweled, and The Sims. Popular table top games include Extreme Jenga, Mancala, Battleship, and Bingo.

Students have created variations of popular games. Resident assistant Lindsey Jacobsen played intercom bingo with the residents of Baroody Hall. She even provided prizes to the winners, who called her at the front desk to shout “bingo!”

Junior Tom O’Brien and his friends play a lively variation of charades with a game they call “What am I Eating?”

Students in Spanish classes play Scrabble (en Español). History professors take on the History Society in Trivial Pursuit. Professor Landis Magnuson conducts role-playing games in his acting and directing classes and Professor Michael McGuinness created a simulation game for his international business students. While their friends are playing on Xboxes and PlayStations, computer students are programming their own high tech games—checkers, dice, blackjack, minesweeper. and others.

Fantasy football and baseball are popular among faculty and staff, as are lunchtime hockey and basketball.

Credit the custodial staff with the more creative adaptations of familiar games. During their annual Custodial Rodeo, 40-50 staffers gather in Carr Center to bounce balls into trash cans, toss beanbag horse shoes, and dunk the roll in toilet paper basketball.