UNR Students Find Relief in Nerf

A lone boy, wearing a gas mask and a helmet, stands on guard holding a fully automatic Nerf blaster. Looking for his target, he comes under fire from an unknown position. Darts fly past him. He sees his big brother on the roof. The two-hour standoff between 8th grader, Dane Bottenberg and his younger brother Jeroen Bottenberg began. Flash forward to today, and Dane Bottenberg is now the president of the Nerf Club of Reno.

Nerf, a brand of toys blasters made by Hasbro, has long since been considered a kids toy. Even so, a group of students on The University of Nevada, Reno campus, came together and started The Nerf Club of Reno. A club that helps students let go through Nerf.

Dane Bottenberg says that Nerf has influenced him as a person, helping him with proper planning.

“I think it’s helped me grow up to be the individual who has refused to grow up,” Bottenberg said.

According to Bottenberg, Nerf is something that can help people through their lives. It allows a person to get through problems in a healthy manner rather than a destructive manner. Getting hit by a foam dart is nothing compared to drinking their problems away or taking drugs to escape them altogether.

“Nerf is an excellent way of letting everything go for a little while, doing something else, and then being able to safely come back into reality,” Bottenberg said.

William Evermann, a member of Nerf Club played Nerf as a way to relive stress.

“It’s a way to separate what’s going on in your life,” said Evermann.

Some companies have even begun to realize the benefits Nerf has on people. These companies will have Nerf outings for their employees, similar to company picnics. This is more common among engineering firms. Bottenberg, being an engineer himself, says that engineers are “big on blasters.”

This is the reason that Bottenberg joined Nerf Club, which at the time was called the Humans Vs. Zombies club. The HVZ club started when a group of people came together and wanted to play the game Humans Vs. Zombies.

This is a game played with a large group of people, where everyone is given a Nerf blaster except for one zombie. That zombie must tag and “infect” everyone. Once everyone is infected, the game starts over.

The HVZ club was successful, even winning the award of best new club of 2011 from the ASUN. The HVZ games were massive, taking place all over campus with hundreds of players. But, a problem occurred that ended the HVZ club. There was an incident where a member painted a Nerf blaster black, wore a ghillie suit (the suit that snipers wear to blend into the environment), and jumped out at a student. This spelled the end of HVZ club.

But, even with HVZ club gone, Bottenberg’s love for Nerf never diminished. Using his knowledge of club infrastructure, Bottenberg took it upon himself to start up the Nerf Club of Reno in 2013. Knowing the mistakes of HVZ club, Bottenberg knew what to look out for and how to avoid the problems of the previous club.

“History is a very good teacher and we won’t be making the same mistakes,” Bottenberg said.

With many new rules to help the reputation of the club, one that comes up often is terminology. They are blasters, not guns. Darts, not bullets. People don’t get shot. They get tagged. These are things that Bottenberg has said many times, but is still guilty of himself.

Bottenberg says that one of the biggest problems he has with running Nerf Club, is finding people who are willing to help out with the games. Many people show up to participate but not many are willing to help out behind the scenes.

“We’re trying to put on a play, and I need more stagehands,” Bottenberg said.

Today the Nerf Club is growing stronger, full of people interested in playing in the games and interested in Nerf. Every Thursday or Friday the Nerf club gets together and has small games of about 10 people, an activity they began recently. The games they play range from the simple free-for-all, to the complicated trouble in turtle town.

“Even the least fun parts of playing Nerf are better than sitting at home doing nothing,” Bottenberg said.

Recently, Nerf Club planned a large game with the fraternity Alpha Sigma Phi at San Raphael park. But, as they are college students, things happen, plans fall through, and people have work to do. Only 15 people ended up coming to the game. That didn’t stop Nerf Club though. They Salvaged the situation and spent hours having fun, only with fewer people.

“The game was fun, and exceeded expectations in a lot of ways, despite a low turnout. More than anything the game gave insight into how to make future games more fun,” Bottenberg said.

This game was just the stepping stone for Nerf Club. In the future Nerf Club hopes to transition back to large scale humans vs. zombies games. But in the meantime, Nerf Club will continue having fun with their current games.

“If I got one thing, one word to say about the games, Awesome,” Bottenberg said