Bump, set spike it. That’s the way they raise it. Money, that is.

Sigma Phi Epsilon’s 14th annual Spiking Out tournament featured a contribution to St. Baldrick’s Foundation and 10 shaved heads.

Rather than putting the emphasis on the popular sand volleyball tournament, the men of SigEp felt inspired to use the event to raise money for childhood cancer after hearing about the idea at their regional conference.

“We went to our regional conference and heard about ‘Shave a SigEp’ from there,” sophomore Tyler Randall said. “It’s been done for a while, but never at our campus. So we decided to bring it here.”

Freshmen Adam Downing, Jadyn Cearnal, Tyler Summers, Nick Patterson, Gage Peters, sophomores Chad Phillips, Randall, Kyle Fecteau, junior Jackson Moormeier and senior Vincent Tadokoro all agreed to raise money for St. Baldrick’s research efforts by shaving their heads after monetary goals were met.

The men of SigEp expected the event to raise approximately $2,000 for St. Baldricks, and with help from the event’s emcee, sophomore Jim Joyner, they easily surpassed their goal. Joyner provided play-by-play and entertainment throughout the day. Between the two events, Spiking Out and Shave a SigEp raised approximately $4,000 for St. Baldrick’s Foundation and Big Brothers Big Sisters of Douglas County.

“During the tournament the emcee would say ‘If you raise $50 right now (the men) will shave the sides of their heads or get mohawks,’ and it got a few more donations than we were expecting,” Randall said. “It also made a fun atmosphere because some of the members did a funny design for the day. We raised more because the emcee pushed the donations during the event so hard.”

Shave a SigEp, in addition to raising money for cancer research, also brought more students out to participate and watch Spiking Out.

“I think that the new addition of the head shaving really contributed to the outcome of individuals participating,” sophomore McKenzie Hanson said. “Chad (Phillips) did an awesome job of organizing the event this year.”

Randall believes that the effect of the 10 shaved heads will help the fraternity continue to raise awareness for St. Baldrick’s in the upcoming weeks.

“For the people who had long hair, people were really startled to see them without hair,” Randall said. “They thought it was funny. But when people see us bald on campus and ask about it, we tell them why we’ve done it. Then everyone thinks it’s an awesome cause.”