Clara Zumpetta wasn’t disappointed that she and about 1,750 of her fellow students didn’t pillow fight their way into the Guinness Book of Records.
For the third year in a row, Buckeye pillow fighters failed to break the record of 3,648 set by students at the State University of New York at Albany.
The cause hits close to home for Zumpetta, a pathology graduate student. She said a family friend died recently from pancreatic cancer, “so I came out to support the cause.”
Mortar Board Pillow Fight Chair Sarah Michalos said 1,757 students showed up on the Oval. The Mortar Board is a national leadership society for college seniors.
Michalos said she was still proud of the pillow fight turnout.
“This is our third year doing it and each year we are beating our own record,” she said. “This is the most participants that we’ve had.”
“I think the more times we do it, the closer we’ll get to beating the record,” she said, noting that she is a senior and isn’t sure if another student will organize the event next year.
Marissa Dean, a junior exercise science major, shared Michalos’ optimism.
“It was disappointing, but I think that going from (a few hundred) people to over a thousand is awesome,” she said.
Although the event was scheduled to start at 8:30 p.m., it was delayed to allow more students to come to the oval. A pillow fight broke out at 8:34, but Michalos told the crowd it didn’t count. Students waved their pillows in the air in anticipation of the pillow fight that started a couple minutes later. For 60 seconds students pounded each other.
Michalos had a suggestion on how to improve the odds of breaking the record next year, if the event is held for the fourth time.
“(This year) we were focusing more on the freshmen to come out,” she said. “I think if we focused on the entire Ohio State undergraduate population we would get more people out.”
