“I’ve played four times and I have never killed a human.” Riskin said since shes slower than the students, “I’m easy cannon fodder for somebody.” Scott Hauck, a fellow professor of electrical engineering, also suffers from the zombie tag infection and plays the game. And I am arguably the worst player,” she said. “So I signed up, too - I needed to keep an eye on him. Eve Riskin, a fellow electrical engineering faculty member and associate dean of academic affairs in the College of Engineering, got involved last year, partly because her 10-year-old son, Aden, wanted to play. Sahr is no longer the only faculty member - or administrator - to be infected with playing zombie tag. Once, after losing a dare, Sahr taught a class with his face covered with “zombie blood.” He said, “It was funny how little they seemed to notice.” The result? “I was out there for about 20 minutes and then a human came, guns blazing, and got me.” “That one was funny because about 50 zombies showed up, and made it just impossible for any humans to get near me.” Another time he promised to be on Red Square at a certain hour and to give a business card to any human who stunned him. “I’d spend the early part of the game trash-talking the zombies and the second half of the game trash-talking the humans.”Īs a zombie, he once announced he would walk twice around the Drumheller Fountain. He used the games Facebook page to taunt opponents and issue challenges. So I created in some sense a kind of mythical character, Associate Dean John Sahr - you always had to say the whole thing.” For the first three or four games I was the only professor. Sahr said, “I took advantage of my unusual position. The game has now grown to about 900 participants campuswide. Those wearing a bandanna on their arm are human zombies wear their bandannas on their undead heads. A human can “stun” a zombie with a dart gun, to give time for an escape. Humans “killed” by zombies also become undead, and must “infect” others, making them zombies too, or die of starvation. Everyone starts out the week human in a game seeded with a few zombies. The rules are pretty simple: There are two teams, the Zombie Horde and the Human Resistance. I always get killed on the second or third day, and then I starve.” “It’s kind of a funny way to have a connection with students,” he said. But when he learned about zombie tag, he knew he had to play, so he signed up. Sahr, who is just short of 50, said he’s not otherwise much of a gamer, though he did play a version of Dungeons and Dragons with some graduate students a few years back. “And I understood immediately the structure and point of what they were doing.” “It just instantly sort of resonated with me - the goofiness of it,” he said. He stopped a student and was told about the game.

“When I saw these kids running around with these orange bandanas and their Nerf guns, I thought - what they’re doing looks so goofy.” It started a couple of years back, he said. Sahr talked awhile in his Gerberding Hall office about fighting in the campus battle of living versus undead. And he’s likely the first UW administrator to regularly play the Humans vs. Courtesy Eve Riskinīut that’s OK - he’s an excellent professor of electrical engineering and associate dean of undergraduate academic affairs.

“The guy’s got spirit,” one student zombie hunter says. John Sahr is Associate Dean for Undergraduate Academic Affairs - but he’s also a regular player n the Humans vs.

Nerf zombie hunter