I recently saw an urgent tweet from the University of Oregon Health Center that called for donations of neck braces to replenish dangerously low neck brace reserves. One of the campus docs followed with another tweet that she had never seen this many instances of neck strains on campus, and that they are looking into seeing if this is a national phenomenon, although they are pretty convinced it is localized to our campus in Eugene.
Malcolm Gladwell might call this whiplash phenomenon an “outlier” localized to the month of November. Levitt and Dubner will call it an “externality” – an unintended consequence of something bigger going on. I call it Movember, and it’s hit the campus of the University of Oregon hard.
Recent conversations with fellow lauders of the lipjacket have confirmed this whiplash trend, revealing that every single one of us who have been growing mustaches for Movember have seen an uncharacteristically high number of double-takes on campus. And those double-takes are taxing on any individual’s neck. For this, on behalf of my comrades, we apologize for having too much awesomeness on our upper lips.
Members of Team Stachesquatch gather for a mo-photo-op
For the past 21 days, over 200 mustachioed mercenaries have combined their efforts to raise awareness and funds for the Movember Movement. In case you’ve been living under a rock for the last three weeks and haven’t heard about Movember, allow me to briefly fill you in. Movember is a month long charity event with the goal of changing the face of men’s health by inspiring conversation about means health issues, and raising funds for the Prostate Cancer Foundation and LIVESTRONG. A gentleman starts clean-shaven on November 1st and continues to grow and flow his stache until the end of the month, with his Charlie Chaplin-ed upper lip serving as a walking billboard.
It’s truly remarkable that the mustaches being sported here at the University of Oregon are receiving so much attention, especially given the amount of hairiness that this campus is characterized by. A look at the numbers and you will see that the University of Oregon is second only to Cal Berkeley in hair-growth per capita – but we all know that Cal’s growth is faux-growth, associated with some fleeting ideal that will be cast aside as soon as graduation comes along. Ergo, the University of Oregon is the most genuinely hairy campus in the nation, and for Movember and all of its mustaches to receive so much attention is, as said before, remarkable.
But that’s the goal of Movember – to be remarkable, to compel someone to approach another and say, “Sir, that is one hell of a mustache.” Once the ice is broken, and the awe of the Groucho Marx has been imbibed, an opportunity is created for conversation about the issues that challenge men’s health and take far too many lives.
While only 218 total people have officially registered for Movember, the conversations that have been had have spread the word all over campus. Student groups participating in Movember include MBA’s, law schoolers, Ducks athletes, fraternities and sororities, and Colleges Against Cancer. Our combined efforts have contributed over $5,000 to the research of prostate and testicular cancers. Additional funds are expected to roll in as we have seen some solid sales of the UO Movember T-Shirts at the Duck Store.
All in all, this has been a memorable experience for me and my Wyatt Earp-ed stache. In the words of fellow MBA mustachionado, Matt Geschke, “I love it when a plan comes together. To see something come to fruition in the manner that Movember has on campus is amazing.” I couldn’t agree more. I’ve never been apart of anything like this, but I can safely say that I will participate in Movember for years to come and hopefully grow this great movement to other campuses and organizations as well. But nothing will ever trump the adventure that has been Movember 2010 at the University of Oregon.
JJ Owen
University of Oregon | MBA 2011
Warsaw Center for Sports Marketing