By Christina Oddo
Writer
Many University students supported Parinaz Hadi ’12 in a contest hosted by barstoolsports.com that placed female college students head-to-head in a March Madness-style bracket by frantically clicking in votes for her. The website promised a party, including a concert, to the champion’s school.
Clicking frantically on barstoolsports.com to support Parinaz Hadi ’12, many students of the University participated in a contest that placed female college students head-to-head in a March Madness-style bracket. The website promised a party, including a concert, to the champion’s school.
The competition included many universities, separated into four regions: north, south, east and west. Female students from each university were nominated and posted pictures on the site, and students voted to show their support. Hadi was the final contestant for the west but lost to the representative for Villanova, a school that is four times bigger than the University.
“I got a Facebook message from John Henry, one of the writers at Barstool U, saying that I got nominated by several students at Bucknell to represent Bucknell in NCAA tournament brackets,” Hadi said.
Morgan Kauffman ’11 did not hear about the voting until the University was in the Elite Eight. She was with her first-year hall, when Greg Stewart ‘11 coined the name “Vote For the Party.” Kauffman’s hall used her account to create a Facebook event and organize the logistics and invitations, making her the middleman in the ordeal.
According to Kauffman, four engineers made a program to allow students to continuously vote. In the end, Hadi received 215,000 votes, but Villanova’s representative won by only a small gap, with 220,000 votes. “The other match was between two other girls,” Hadi said, and “each got around 9,000 votes each.”
There has been talk that Barstool U’s site crashed twice, which has led to many rumors that perhaps Hadi could have won. “They then listed that Bucknell would be one of the top five schools that they wanted to host a party at, since we were so intense in our voting,” Kauffman said.
Barstool U contacted Hadi and said “that they will throw a party at Bucknell even though we lost, just because we got so many votes in,” Parinaz said. “The details of the party will come soon.”
The administration of Barstool U said that they have never ever seen anything like the competition between Hadi and her competitor. The amount of page views that they got from the two universities alone paid for the web master’s salary, he joked. This kind of support has never been seen.
According to Hadi, after the final four, it was no longer about the girls but more about the universities competing.
“I feel very honored in the first place that I got nominated among all these beautiful students at Bucknell, and I want to thank everyone who voted,” Hadi said. “I am very proud to be a part of this community.”