The Nevada Sagebrush

President of club leads would-be survivors

Erik Cooper

Age: 21
Major: Philosophy
What he does: Cooper is the president of the United Zombie Defense Front, a club “for discussing strategies and making preparations” for an upcoming zombie attack.

Erik Cooper, a 21-year-old philosophy major, is a founding member of the United Zombie Defense Front, a club on campus dedicated to “discussing strategies and making preparations” for a zombie attack. Photo by: Natasha Vitale /Nevada Sagebrush

Some would say that the zombie apocalypse is inevitable. That it’s only a matter of time before the era of mankind ends and the bloodthirsty undead are roaming the cities, hunting for fresh meat. That survivors will flock together in order to survive, creating various strategies to protect themselves from hordes of zombies.

But before that happens, what is humanity doing to prepare itself against the inevitable? What plans are being made?

Erik Cooper, a 21-year-old philosophy student at the University of Nevada, Reno and president of the United Zombie Defense Front (UZDF), may have a few ideas.

“Nobody wants to be eaten by zombies,” Cooper said. “The UZDF is for discussing strategies and making preparations.”

There was no club for students with like-minded interests in zombies to gather and toy around with the ideas, and so the UZDF was born, Cooper, a founding member of the club, said.

“We not only discuss zombies, but we watch movies about them and play games, too,” Cooper said. “There’s a board game about zombies, and one game we played was based off of the popular game ‘Assassin.’ One group is the zombies, and the survivors are equipped with green tassels. If the zombies get the tassels, then the survivors become one of them.”

The club has not been able to meet on a consistent basis this year, Cooper said. There will be a meeting this Thursday in Sierra Hall, and further meetings will be scheduled from there.

“It’s a really fun club,” Anne Smith, a 20-year-old biochemistry major and a member of UZDF, said. “It’s also interesting on an intellectual level and it’s something almost anybody could get into. As a biochemistry major, I like discussing theories for how the outbreak even starts.”

“I think the zombie apocalypse is inevitable, and people should be just as aware of it as they are with the swine flu,” Kirby Myers, a 20-year-old chemical engineering major and member of the UZDF, said. “We should be especially aware of it in a high-density population. With all the preparation that went into the swine flu, equal preparation should go into surviving the zombie apocalypse.”

“We as part of the UZDF try to study the beast as much as possible and make plans,” Myers said. “One thing everybody shouldn’t underestimate, though, is the importance of cardio. You’re going to need to be in shape to run away from zombies. That’s why we do zombie drills sometimes.”

While the UZDF enjoys its share of fun with games and movies, they also discuss potential survival techniques.

“Basically, you should get away from the general civilization and out of populated areas,” Smith said. “Make it to shelter, weapons, ammunition and formulate a plan from there.”

Cooper said part of the UZDF’s goal is to prepare for all possible zombocolypse — there are fast zombies, slow zombies and viral zombies.

“We want to be prepared for all possible outcomes,” Cooper said.

Madison Jackson can be reached at news@nevadasagebrush.com.

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