Campus Outreach began their annual basketball and volleyball tournaments at the courts outside of Stevenson Hall on Tuesday night.

The event continues Wednesday night with a championship for both tournaments on Sept. 3. 

The teams competing in the basketball tournament, called Rim Rockers, and the volleyball tournament, called VolleyBrawl, are consisted of almost exclusively freshman.

Many of the teams had custom T-shirts made for the event featuring their team names and logos.

Brock Kukman helped organize the event for Campus Outreach with the goal of welcoming incoming students.

“You can have one non-freshman on a team, but its mainly freshman,” Kukman said. “I think a majority of the teams this year are all freshmen.”

Kukman also announced which teams were up next on the basketball court and helped keep things moving.

Connor Dimick is the campus director of Campus Outreach at Eastern. This is his seventh year with Campus Outreach, but he said that this is the ninth time they have hosted this event.

“It’s a good opportunity for freshmen to come out here and get to meet each other,” Dimick said. “It’s fun because a lot of the upper-classmen who have done it before come back out to kind of relive the glory days and meet new people.”

Announcing which teams were due up in the volleyball tournament was Valerie Thompson, a student at Eastern and a member of Campus Outreach. She said that she was pleased with both the turnout and atmosphere of the event.

“I think its going great. There’s just such a great turnout tonight and its more than we ever could have hoped for,” Thompson said. “Everybody seems to be getting along. I know a lot of people told me that they were nervous coming to it, but now they’re really happy that they came because of all the people that they met.”

Kukman said he was also pleased with the event.

“It’s a pretty good turnout right now,” he said. “It’s always a hype environment.”

A lot of the attention seemed to be focused on the basketball tournament, as many of the bystanders stood along the sidelines to watch the games.

“It seems like a lot of guys really enjoy it,” Dimick said. “If there’s any negative feedback, it’s probably that the games get a little intense. Foul calling can get a little bit rough. But overall, guys seem to enjoy it.”

The remainder of the event will take place at the same courts, weather permitting. The event was actually scheduled to begin Monday night, but was pushed back due to rain in the area.

“It’s just a really great opportunity for people to meet other people,” Thompson said. “I think that’s what is going on tonight. Everybody is just having a really great time.”

Adam Tumino can be reached at 581-2812 or ajtumino@eiu.edu