A group of 127 Notre Dame students broke the record for the World's Longest Spoon Train in the middle of South Quad Thursday afternoon.
Junior Charlie Mahoney originally proposed the idea to his friends as a joke, but the scheme slowly gained credence until finally he and fellow ski team member Joel Sharbrough decided to make the biggest spoon train ever.
"We obviously loved spooning in the first place, so we just thought why don't we be the best spooners we can be? And it just spiraled into something huge," event coordinator Sharbrough said.
As ski team spoon co-captain with Kerry McGuire, he planned and advanced the idea for the event.
Spooning occurs when two people lay on their sides facing the same direction so that they fit snugly together.
"It's not immoral at all," ski team junior Katie Rehberger said. "It's a way to unite the campus."
Students began to accumulate on South Quad around 4:30 p.m., though it took about thirty minutes for enough students to make a train long enough to beat the previous record of 98 people.
"We are still in the process of contacting the Guinness Book of World Records," Sharbrough said. "We expect that it will take at least six more weeks."
Most of yesterday's participants learned of the record-breaking train though their friends or the massive Facebook group. While many spooners were part of the online group, a number of them were recruited to join as they walked past on the quad.
"It's fun to be outside, having a good time and doing something a little crazy," sophomore Kelly Rice said. "And if I had to be a utensil, I would definitely be a spoon."
Other students echoed Rice's enthusiasm for the event.
"It's definitely the biggest event in my four years here," senior Kyle Bocinsky said.
Coordinators said plans for the event grew since the idea's inception about a month and a half ago, and included a Facebook event, an order of 80 T-shirts and an attempt to be on an official AnTostal event.
The bright blue T-shirt, designed by junior Liz Keedy, sports the word "little" on the front and "Big" on the back, with spoons on both sides.
Though some students present accused the Student Activities Office (SAO) of refusing to sponsor the event as the result of too much physical contact, SAO coordinator for the Student Union Board (SUB) Amy Geist stated that it actually was in the original draft of the program.
"Unfortunately, though, it was never actually submitted as a request to our office, as all of the other events run by dorms and SUB were," Geist said. As a result, said Geist, the event had to be removed from AnTostal programs and posters.
For some spooners, they declared the giant train as the highlight of their year.
"It was the greatest afternoon ever," said Kevin Dacey, a sophomore.
