Hashers mark game with a run to the store.Byline: Mark Baker The Register-Guard It'll be da Bears and da Hares. And, of course, da Colts, too, when Super Bowl Sunday kicks off in Eugene today. You know the Chicago Bears Saturday Night Live (SNL " skit that made fun of their fans. But who, you ask, are "da Hares"? That would be the Eugene Hash House Harriers This article has multiple issues: * Its tone or style may not be appropriate for Wikipedia. * It may need to be to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. , that wacky Eugene running (and drinking) club that has been holding an annual Super Bowl Sunday run for the past decade or so. The five-mile runs are usually on a different course each year, but the party afterward always begins and ends at the same place: Bradford's Home Entertainment in downtown Eugene. Why there? "Because they have a whole bunch of big-screen TVs to watch the game on," says Todd Bosworth, a financial adviser with Smith Barney Smith Barney is a division of Citigroup Global Capital Markets Inc., a global, full-service financial firm, that provides brokerage, investment banking and asset management services to corporations, governments and individuals around the world. in Eugene and founder of the running club that gives its members nicknames such as Barely ManBelow, Rock Hard and Mystery Meat. "I think we did a run (one Super Bowl Sunday) and it ended here," says Jeff Vandervelden, Bradford's co-owner. "It turned out to be so much fun we couldn't stop doing it," says the former Harriers' regular who mostly gave it up after a waterskiing accident and two knee surgeries. Sometimes, though, he participants in the Harriers' Eugene Celebration run known as the "Red Dress Hash" that involves, well, running from bar to bar in a red dress. The Harriers also hold "clown," "tighty-whitey" and "toga" hashes. Hashing is based on the English game English Game a long-legged, long-necked meat fowl with a wide, shallow body, long, muscular legs and muscular wings. Multicolored, mostly red, brown and white; originated from fighting birds. hare and hounds hare and hounds n. A game in which one group of players leaves a trail of paper scraps for a pursuing group to follow. Noun 1. and started in Malaysia in the 1930s. During a hash run, which can often include drinking beer at checkpoints along the run, flour is laid out by a "hare," a lead runner. And the run is anything but a casual jog: Runners negotiate swamps and scale barbed-wire fences. But on this day, the Harriers and all who join them get to finish with food, fun and football. And plenty of beer. "If it's my choice, it's Dead Guy Ale," Vandervelden says. He and co-owner Tim Smigley close the store, normally open from noon to 5 p.m. on Sundays, and put up a sign indicating a "special party" is going on inside. And what if someone just shows up with $10 and wants to watch the game? "We let 'em," Vandervelden says. One woman shows up every year just to eat the food, he says of the bring-your-own potluck. If you'd like to shower after the run, Bosworth provides passes to the Downtown Athletic Club The Downtown Athletic Club was an athletic club in a 35-story building located at 19 West Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City, USA. It was founded in 1926. By 1927, it had purchased this site next to the Hudson River to construct its own building. so you can do just that. Asked who's going to win Super Bowl XLI, Vandervelden says, "Who's playing?" He's kidding, right? "All the years that we've had this, I've never really watched the game," he says. "I just end up talking with people. I'm not really into football." SUPER BOWL HASH What: Super Bowl Sunday run with Eugene Hash House Harriers When: Noon Where: Meet at the Old Pad, 3355 E. Amazon Drive, for the start of the run; watch the 3:30 p.m. game at Bradford's Home Entertainment, 942 Olive St. How much: $10; and bring a dish for the potluck and a chair to sit on |
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