The Nevada Sagebrush

Tradition

Despite decline in spirit, student leaders want to bring back campus customs

University of Nevada, Reno students broke a world record on Feb. 7, 1996.

More than 1,000 students gathered on the quad just after midnight. Despite protests from the administration, students dropped their pants and mooned.

Brita Muller hopes to recreate that scene Tuesday night at this year’s Moon Off to kick off Flipside’s Mackay Week, a university tradition that has faded over the last two decades.

But while Muller, the student government’s director of homecoming and former university weeks chair, wants to beat the current world record of about 2,000 Swedish people mooning back in 2001, she said it’s more about bringing back spirit to campus.

“There’s something missing on this campus,” she said. “I want that to change. (UNR) could be so much more than what it is now.”

Gone are the days where dozens of groups would participate in the homecoming parade or play tug-of-war next to Manzanita Lake. Students no longer dress up in cowboy gear for Mackay Week, and a Winter Carnival week for students, which brought people up to the mountains for discounted ski passes and different races, faded away after the 1980s.

Compared to other universities around the country, which have traditions ranging from rivalries to bike races and drinking games, UNR’s lack of tradition is a “sign of the times,” history professor Richard Davies said.

Old yearbooks and newspapers show how traditions have changed. A large photo near the front of the 1987 yearbook shows men drinking beer directly out of a large container. Now alcohol is banned from campus and rush events.

A 1929 photo of the University of Nevada homecoming parade shows crowded streets as the floats went by, and a 1985 yearbook says more than 70 groups built homecoming floats. But university students weren’t aware of that commitment in 2005, when the programming board opted out of having a homecoming parade.

Mackay Week photos in yearbooks from the 1980s show series of students mixing drinks, tugs-of-war and picnics. But last year, Mackay Week events had low numbers in attendance.

“The lack of interest from students is what has turned Mackay Week, which used to be a huge university-wide party in the spring, into Mackay luncheon,” Davies said.

Joe Crowley, UNR president from 1978 to 2000, said it should be expected that university traditions change and disappear.

Crowley, who started working at UNR in 1966, described a tradition he learned about from the 1930s and 1940s, when freshman males were required to wear beanies or “dinks” as part of campus tradition. Forgetting to wear a beanie could mean being tossed into Manzanita Lake by the upperclassmen, Crowley said.

But after World War II veterans enrolled at the university, the beanies disappeared because the veterans refused to wear them.

From a campus-wide alcohol ban to students moving off campus, several factors caused UNR to change from what it was in the past.

“The lack of interest from students is what has turned Mackay Week, which used to be a huge university-wide party in the spring, into Mackay luncheon,” Richard Davies said.

With Greek life numbers down from more than half the campus in the 1950s to about seven percent today as well as the student population growing from about 5,000 in the 1980s to nearly 17,000 in 2008, the culture was bound to change, Crowley said.

“Students are more interested in getting that piece of paper – their diploma – than they are in participating in some university week,” Davies said.

But for things to change, student attitudes need to change, said Eli Reilly, Associated Students of the University of Nevada president.

Reilly said he wanted to create an atmosphere similar to other campuses around the country, where tradition is prevalent.

Reilly compared UNR to the University of Maryland, which has its own Web site for traditions that include words to the fight song and key landmarks around the university.

“We could be that,” Reilly said as he scrolled through the Web site. He pointed out Testudo, Maryland’s mascot and statue. Since the 1990s, students have left items from food and drinks, to cigars and coins at Testudo’s steps for good luck during exams.

Reilly started a similar event where people could make offerings to the John Mackay statue out by the quad during finals.

“It’s about getting these kinds of things started and then keeping them going,” Reilly said.

Muller said the traditions exist – they’re just buried in yearbooks and archives. In order to prepare for Mackay Week, Muller said she checked out the yearbooks to learn about the traditions.

“This stuff isn’t written down anywhere,” she said. “We need to find it, then promote it.”

The plan to turn the lack of participation around has slowly improved over recent years, going from no homecoming parade in 2005 to having about 25 groups sign up for last year’s parade.

Reilly said providing programs for students, which include Welcome Week and homecoming, and teaching about traditions — like the fight for the Fremont Cannon with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas — will help rebuild the history that’s been lost.

“You start with the freshmen who don’t know what to expect, and you give them this amazing year,” he said. “Then they come back their sophomore year and expect the same thing, and they want to participate. You continue that with the freshmen, and eventually, you have an entire campus of people who look forward to Mackay Week and homecoming and painting the ‘N’ each year.”

Mackay

John Mackay statue rich in university, state symbolism

A stack of almost 20 articles about John Mackay is filed in a cabinet in Noah Millet’s room. The mining engineering major has a couple “Mackay is my homeboy” shirts hanging in his closet and he received Mackay coins Saturday to celebrate the centennial anniversary of the mining school.

“I like the history of John Mackay,” said Millett, former president of the John Mackay Club said. “I personally think the campus formed around the Mackay School of Mines.”

Other University of Nevada, Reno students only know Mackay by the bronze statue that heads The Quad in south campus. The 100-year-old statue symbolizes both the foundation of UNR and Nevada as a successful mining state.

In the late 1800s, John Mackay became one of the richest men in the world after he struck silver in Virginia City. Mackay died on a business trip in London in 1902. His family later donated money to UNR, helping pay for the construction of the Mackay School of Mines.

Mackay’s son, Clarence, hired Gutzon Borglum – who later carved Mount Rushmore – to carve the statue of John Mackay that UNR President Joseph Stub requested in 1906. The statue and the Mackay School of Mines were dedicated in a special ceremony to him June 10, 1908.

The statue, which faces Virginia City, is about 1.5 times Mackay’s actual size because he was only about 5 feet 2 inches tall, Rachel Dolbier, an administrator for the W. M. Keck Earth Science and Mineral Engineering Museum, said. When the statue was built, Mackay was already dead so the artist used pictures for the sculpture. Dolbier said the body of the statue is probably not Mackay’s, but most likely resembles any fit young man.

Throughout the years, university students have vandalized the statue with things like paint and yogurt, and continue to dress it up for various occasions. Dolbier said maintenance workers have been able to power wash everything off and the statue remains in good condition.

“It’s unfortunate (that people vandalize it) because the statue is 100 years old – it’s a symbol of John Mackay and the university,” Dolbier said.

Mackay week events

Tuesday
Moon Off
Location: The Quad
10 p.m. to 12:30 a.m.
The mooning begins at midnight as the student government tries to break the world record. They need more than 2,000 people to come to the event.

Wednesday
Tug-of-War Competition
Location: John Sala Intramural Field
2 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Tug-of-war competition. Teams of 10 can compete for the grand prize of $200 in iTunes gift cards. Sign up at Lombardi by 5 p.m. Tuesday.

Wolf It Down Pancake Breakfast
Location: The Quad
11:30 p.m. to midnight
Flipside will be serving pancakes on the quad.

Thursday
Graduation Celebration
Location: The Joe Plaza
11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
All-school barbecue with inflatables, pie-eating contest and a DJ hosted by Flipside and the Alumni Association.

The Great Mackay Sleep Out
Location: the Quad
10 p.m. to 11 a.m.
Come out for a sleepover on The Quad. Flipside will show the movie “Wedding Crashers.” Bring sleeping bags and pillows, but no tents.