The worst $5 I've ever spent. Ever.

Just like any other workday, Dan sends me a chat message informing me of a Student Athlete Talent Show taking place in the evening. A talent show, you say? Sounds moderately intriguing. I imagine Softball Players playing the piano, Basketball players juggling, some crappy stand up comedy, Alaina being pretty (that's a talent, right?)... sounds like something I could kill two hours with. Alright Dan, after your compelling argument of "Well, you have nothing better to do," I cave. Lets go.

We get to the Talent Show, and the stands are quite well packed. Mostly athletes, a few fans here and there, and a full stage front and center. It looked like a mini concert arena, with a concert feel to it. Let's get this show on the road.
Here come our hosts for the night...two SHIT faced athletes, one football, one Womens Lacrosse. We'll get to more on them later. They say their (rather slurred) hello's, everyone is in a generally perky mood, and we're ready to see our first video.

Wait, what? A video? Ok, I'll sit through it, it's brought to us by Women's Soccer. And that's what the video was of... women's soccer. It was soccer players... playing soccer, then cutting to other non-soccer players... playing soccer. Back to soccer players now juggling the ball at the football stadium. Now to a coach not playing soccer very well. Back to soccer players playing on campus. Literally 6+ minutes later, the video ends, and everyone applauds. Applause? What the fuck was that? What are we applauding? Is every sport just going to show a video of what they do, and then we do a talent show after? Well, I'm glad this video is over, let's bring back the MC's of the evening.

The football player (announcer 1) quite literally stumbles back on to the stage floor, as he and his lacrosse partner (#2) ramble about a charity that they clearly don't know anything about. #1 incoherently rants "We go over there, it means a lot, we play dodgeball so hard, it gets really competitive, and here's our next act."

On comes a 15 year old boy and a 45+ year old man doing a song on African Drums. All I could do was stare at this point. What am I watching? And what does this have to do with Student Athletes? 5 minutes of confusion later, The MC's come back and announce our next video for Women's Lacrosse.

Another Video. My heart sank and reality was kicking in. This was just the appetizer in a 17 course meal of athlete videos for the next two hours.  The women's lacrosse team made a parody of the viral video "Shit Girls Say" only it was "Stuff that Women's Lacrosse Players Don't Say." I thought these were going to be videos of athletes doing what they do, like what Women's Soccer did. No? Alright... Well, can anyone tell me when actual talent takes part in the TALENT SHOW??? No? This is awful. I want my pianos and stand up comedy that my-previous-self promised me.

Time passes, as do some really terrible "acts." Not Talents. Acts. The basketball team did a version of "the dating game" with their own teammates. The Women's Golf team made a Happy Gilmore trailer with their own athletes. None of this is talent. None of this is funny. None of this deserves anyone's attention.

But wait, here comes the volleyball team, and they're doing an act on Beauty Pageants? I think I know where this is going. Out comes #1, dressed ugly. #JP, looking like JP (but supposed to be ugly), then Miss Oregon, USA. Alaina Bergsma. Oh my did she look amazing (and was the only one of them all trying to be attractive).  They have "judges" help narrow down the selection, and finally the audience gets to decide who the winner is. Unfortunately for the VB team, they didn't account for the fact that they made one of their "ugly" participants a comedic relief, and the crowd unanimously voted her to win. But that's not what the script called for. The script called for Alaina to win... so they chose her as the winner of the fake competition, after which she promoted herself (which is fair). The script also called for Liz, #6, to come in during the middle of the act and do pushups on a volleyball and basketball wearing a softball uniform, then just stand there without really saying anything.

Following a "half time" intermission, the night was becoming long and the alcohol of the MC's was thinning. They began to literally read off of a script about charities they had no idea about. Female MC even said something along the lines of "I really don't know anything about this pet shelter, so I'm just going to read from the script. I've been once, and got to play with the dogs." Their tone became less patient, and their sass (the girls in particular) changed from trying-to-be-funny to being pessimistically evil and bitchy. Anyone who had common sense could tell that they didn't care at all about the charities they were promoting; they wanted the night to end. This isn't to say that ALL athletes there didn't care about charitable events, but man, did O Heroes do a poor job in choosing who the speakers were.

The tennis team was the only team that put a show on. It was filled with makeup, music, props, choreography, multiple sketches and Rabea. Everything I needed in a performance, they had. Men's golf (although long) also put in a solid effort (in video form). They made fun of themselves and the lack of respect they get, which translated well into humor.

As the end of the night approaches, we turn our focus to the judges. One judge in particular was a 10 year old boy with Intellectual Disabilities. It looked as if he was enjoying himself, but in reality it was really a tragic situation. 99.9% of the people in the stadium were oblivious to the fact that he was being used as a tool to make adults promote their charity. All he did was read statements that were right in front of him, or say things whispered in to his ear. He was, quite literally, a human prop. It was degrading and pitiful. People laughed at anything he coherently said. After a while, it was just hard to watch.

Finally, the end of the night comes, and the judges make their decision on who the winners are.
Best video went to Men's golf (which was deserving). And best act goes to Football (which was a freestyle 'Danceoff' that clearly none of the players had practiced). A fitting end to what was quite possibly the worst 2 hours of my life in Eugene Oregon.