The Facts:
UNC-Chapel Hill’s Interfraternity Council will host the Chick-fil-A challenge Saturday as a philanthropy event for the N.C. Children’s Hospital.
Our Opinion:
Carolina’s pathetic effort at a Krispy Kreme Challenge copycat should be embarrassing to students there. Philanthropy is great, but be original.
The Krispy Kreme Challenge has quickly entered the ranks of N.C. State’s most hallowed traditions. It transcends class and major, bringing more than 6,000 people together for charity in one of the most difficult physical challenges most competitors have ever experienced. The 2,400 calories from the 12 doughnuts and the four-mile run that brackets them are incredibly difficult — uniquely so. The challenge is so tricky, in fact, that Sports Illustrated named it one of the “101 Things to Do Before You Graduate.”
In some sort of strange adaptation of the KKC, UNC-Chapel Hill’s Interfraternity Council will host the Chick-fil-A Challenge Saturday. The event, which is based on the success of N.C. State’s groundbreaking philanthropy run, will raise money for the N.C. Children’s Hospital.
The IFC at UNC should be proud of its philanthropic activities — and rightfully so if the proceeds are going toward the children’s hospital. But this is a pathetic modification of a truly inventive, and renowned, event.
The Chick-fil-A Challenge hardly deserves the moniker of a challenge. A 12 pack of nuggets, which participants in the UNC event will have to consume in a manner similar to the KKC, has only 400 calories. That’s a sixth of the caloric consumption of the real challenge — perhaps, they should refer to the event as the Chick-fil-A Happy Meal run. For goodness sake, a dozen of those tiny nuggets can be consumed in a single bite.
Despite the IFC’s claim that it isn’t trying to copy the KKC, it’s patently obvious the organization has. There is nothing original about the Chick-fil-A Challenge and, quite honestly, Carolina students should be embarrassed that their school couldn’t develop a more creative idea.
It must be awful enough going to a school named after a dirty foot, but why tack on an additional discomfiture?
Many Carolina students already come to the KKC, and we’ll continue to welcome them with open arms, but the IFC should really go back to the drawing board and advance a better philanthropy event next year — this is pitiable.
