Students at the University of Maryland have a new option for extracurricular activities: a competitive-eating club:
[Keith] Solomon founded the competitive club during his freshman year when he and his friends realized their university meal plans came with an expiration date. And they aren’t the type who like letting meals go to waste.”
If you have too many points on your dining plan after a certain date, they just cut whatever you have left,” Solomon told AOL News. “So we’d just buy 20 pizzas and all these chicken fingers and devour it all.”
After starting the club as a joke among friends, Solomon decided to go official — gaining club status from the University of Maryland last week.
Trouble is, the club doesn’t have anyone to compete against:
But without competition, competitive eating is just plain old eating. So the environmental engineering major is trying to develop a network of competitive eating clubs at other colleges that could become his club’s future rivals.”
The goal is that we get these teams started at other universities so we could compete intercollegiately,” said Solomon, who has not yet cut his teeth in a sanctioned event but says he’s particularly skilled at consuming large portions of hamburgers and Jell-o.
Once other schools field teams, Solomon hopes to organize multi-college events where clubs from several schools can chow down against each other.