In its first 100 years of existence, Georgia State University has already garnered a long list of feats. Most recently, a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most high-fives under one minute may soon be added to that list.
Although Georgia State cannot claim the record until they receive verification from the Guinness Book of World Records headquarters, it is pretty much in the bag for many students who helped to coordinate the event.
“So [for] right now we’ve attempted it,” said Jabriel McIntosh, co-traditions director for Spotlight Programs on campus.
McIntosh, a junior and marketing/real-estate major, had the idea of putting together something major that would bring out a diverse group of students. He said he wanted “to find a record that would be tangible,” to reach for the general Georgia State student body.
The event also required a written statement from a ‘judge,’ or someone who witnessed the breaking of the previous record.
“[It] couldn’t be anyone who is affiliated with Georgia State in any type of way,” McIntosh said. A friend of his was able to get a TV personality to be the ‘judge’ for the event.
Although he admits that he cannot remember her name, he says that “she just works with CNN Sports [and it] made sense for her to do something where it kind of takes a little athleticism.”
At the time that Spotlight in conjunction with University Relations decided to try and beat the most-high-fives-in-less-than-one-minute-record a few months ago, the record was 107. This was the number Spotlight had originally been telling students they wanted to beat.
On the day of the event, however, something had changed.
“We noticed [that] morning that it had jumped up to 132. So we were frantic,” McIntosh said. Not only had the record to beat changed, but the location in which the event was to be held had changed, too.
“…The weather was kind of horrible and it got extremely cold so that’s when we really started [to] kind of worry,” he said. He and others were afraid they the outdoor conditions would dissuade students from coming out to watch and participate.
But thanks to social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter, those who organized the event were able to let students know the location had been moved from Hurt Park to the Student Center, McIntosh said.
A line of 200 students standing in front of one another with their hands up were each ‘high-fived’ by homecoming queen Alexis Avery and in a matter of seconds the time was announced.
“[We] did 200 high-fives in 51 seconds,” McIntosh said.
The event was attended by a number of students from various organizations on campus, including Greeks and Campus Events. It was so much fun, in fact, that McIntosh said he would love to do something like this again on a much larger scale.
“I’d love for Georgia State as a whole to be involved. [But] it’s kind of hard to reach out to everybody,” he said. “I mean we have over 30,000 students so I’d love to do something on a large scale, where there’s a large event or football game, something where we can just bring out everybody to be a part of.”
