Taylor University and Indiana Wesleyan University students paused their cross-county rivalry Friday night as the two schools came together for “Love On The Line.”
A pool of six or seven candidates were on one of the curtains and answered questions asked by the host. A single candidate was on the other side and said which answer from the pool they liked the best.
One of the matching couples was IWU’s Ethan Stout and Addison Conder. Conder said that she does not know Ethan very well, but a connection is possible.
Jess Clark, the Student Activities Council’s director of co-curricular experience, said the winning couples go on a group trip.
“We don’t want it to feel like there is actually romantic pressure, So we send them as a group on an outing,” Clark said. “So that varies year to year. Last year, they went axe throwing. This year, they’re going to go bowling.”
The possibility of matching with someone from another school added another layer to the event. The pool of participants typically featured three Taylor and three IWU students.
A male candidate from each school and a female candidate from each school made up the four candidates. One of the male candidates from Taylor was Ralph Godfrey.
Godfrey matched with a girl from IWU. Godfrey said the event was cool and pretty silly, and that the girl he was matched with is really nice.
One of the girls who was not selected was Sage Gable from Taylor. Gable said she does not regent any of the answers she said or sang.
Three of the four couples that got matched are from opposite schools.
Several people commented on the collaboration between two rival schools.
Kinlee Hackman from Taylor said,” I feel like while the schools have a rivalry, it’s good for us to come together.”
Conder said it is a great way to form a community between the schools. Taylor and Indiana Wesleyan have a long-time rivalry as two members of the Crossroads league.
The host of the game show, Steve Wood, loved mixing the two schools.
“What a great way to bring our schools together to have fun,” Wood said. “We’re enemies on the sports fields, but love is a different battlefield, and so love is blind. So I thought it was brilliant.”
Clark said that the Taylor/IWU collaboration was very spur of the moment.
“We were in a meeting, and somebody said, hey, why don’t we invite Taylor? That would be so funny,” Clark said. “I actually had a meeting with the director of SAC over at Taylor the next weekend, and he liked the idea.”
