Logrolling comes to Mason hoping to make a splash

BY DANA NICKEL, ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR

Two years ago, Mason purchased a $2000 log to teach young children log rolling at a summer camp. Due to the high price of the activity, the students decided to create other uses for the log to get their money’s worth. That is when they decided to bring it to Mason’s Annual Splash Night.

“That’s when it starting becoming more popular,” said Derrick Lemmon, the captain of Mason’s log rolling team. “That’s when I got into it.”

Lemmon explained the competition aspect of this new sport. The object is to stay on the log as long as possible while simultaneously attempting to knock off the competitor. “Overall, you just want to fight to stay on top. It’s pretty intense,” said Lemmon.

Lemmon frequently competes in log rolling tournaments against other university log rolling teams. He has participated in log rolling since his freshman year of college when he first discovered the sport.

“The last competition I went to I actually beat JMU [James Madison University],” recalled Lemmon on his most recent log rolling tournament.  There were other teams that came down from New Jersey to compete and they had been logrolling much longer than I had. So it was a little interesting to compete against people that knew what they were doing.”

Lemmon also explained that he is attempting to have Mason host log rolling tournaments as early as next semester, as he is hopeful to have his new team competing by then.

“Last year we had about four people,” Lemmon explained. “Now we have about twelve, and more people are becoming interested.” While there is a tournament next month, Lemmon will be competing alone as he is the only team member that is experienced in log rolling.

While log rolling is not an official club sport yet, the log rolling team is hopeful to meet a faculty advisor soon to officially request to be an official club at Mason.