Besides entering the lottery and hoping for the best, there's typically not much UNC students can do if they want free tickets to the men's basketball home game against Duke.
Well, until this year.
On Friday evening, hundreds of students participated in the Dook It Out rock-paper-scissors tournament at the Bill Koman Practice Complex, located next to Hooker Fields. Organized by Hussman School of Journalism and Media juniors Juliette Dias and Josh Tu, the tournament's grand prize was a pair of tickets to the rivalry game on Feb. 3. The project was a product of Media and Journalism 477: New Media Technologies, taught by Gary Kayye, a teaching assistant professor at the Hussman School in fall 2023.
The class settled on the timeless game of rock-paper-scissors from a pool of ambitious ideas spanning from a "Squid Game" themed activity to a Mr. Beast appearance.
"We wanted to make it something fun for everybody else, too,” Dias said. “So, when we were looking at the drawing board for what to make as far as an event, we wanted to make something that we would do ourselves.”
Media and Journalism 477, which has been offered every fall since 2010, is dedicated to fostering students' practical marketing and branding skills. Kayye provided the foundational knowledge of branding and technology for the students to innovate and create. However, he ensured that the ownership of the project laid in the hands of the students, allowing them to make critical decisions, strategize and execute their plans independently.
Through social media marketing and partnerships with notable former UNC athletes like Erin Matson and Drake Maye, almost 300 students caught wind of the tournament.
“I’m duly impressed," Kayye said. "There’s great support on campus. And I think our campus needed an event like this. We’ve had a tough seven months.”
UNC senior advertising and public relations major Kyle Beaman, a part of the strategy team, was responsible for brainstorming the winning prizes.
