BG Sabers is continuing with growing membership since Campus Fest and a performance at the letters this past weekend.
BG Sabers was started two years ago by Gabe Nelson, who now serves as the club’s Vice President. Nelson would duel with his friend Connor Check outside of Founders Residence Hall.
“So, I’ve just been doing lightsabers since the middle of high school. I decided I’ll just bring it with me to college. Maybe I’ll just have it. It’ll be a little cool thing I have. Then I happened to meet someone who also had a lightsaber. And for a while, it was just purely free dueling us just going at it.” Nelson said.
However, Nelson and Check were not alone, and one day when they were dueling outside Founders they met Shawn Hammel, who is the current President of BG Sabers. “
He figured out where we were and came running across the lawn by founders with his own lightsaber, and he was like, look what I have,” Check said.
Once Hammel came over with his lightsaber, he became a regular, commonly dueling with Nelson and Check outside.
Soon Nelson, Check and Hammel found out they weren’t alone in their love of lightsabers and Star Wars. Soon the club only grew with more and more people joining to fight and show off their lightsabers.
“When we’re figuring out, like style and stuff, it’s just kinda goofing around or whatever…then once you get into the choreography, you’re still kinda goofing around but you’re goofing around with a purpose,” Check said.
“Like, a lot of times, someone will do something as we’re scripting out stuff, that’s our choreography. And then, when we’re just we call it free dueling where it’s just like, alright. Square up, and then you just go at it.” Nelson said.
Many of the members’ lightsabers are from the company Saber Forge. The company specializes in durable lightsabers that can withstand hard hits but also look just like the sabers in the ones in the Star Wars movies and shows.
In addition, BG Sabers has continued to grow its social media presence, with more than 3,000 followers on Instagram. BG Sabers is also a very unique club, with BGSU being one of the few colleges in the nation with a club focused on lightsabers. The members make sure they are safe though, having a waiver to ensure people don’t hit with their sabers too hard.
“In my research of what we found, official clubs, maybe two or three, throughout the entire country,” Nelson said.
Even though BG Sabers was started in 2022, the club only became an official BGSU club last year. The reason behind that was the continued growth of the club.
“We went from that up to about twenty as of last year, and then we’ve just been adding more people. At Campus Fest, we jumped up our Discord server when we went into Campus Fest at about thirty. After Campus Fest, we’re pushing a 100 now,” Check said.
Only 18 people show up to the meet ups, but that doesn’t stop people from showing up to the meetings to watch or talk about Star Wars. Especially for the once a semester shows they perform in front of the BGSU letters.
“We did another set where we did it on two days, and between those two days, I think each day 50 people, each day. And then that was without an Instagram. Two years ago, when we were completely unofficial, we just went on the letters. And it was advertised purely through word-of-mouth, Yik Yak and Snapchat.” Nelson said.
The once a semester show they do in front of the letters continues, with this past weekend students came out to see the club perform their 15 minute show again. The crowd drawn was large enough to lead to the show getting sponsored by Redbull. This past weekend’s addition of the once a semester show had around 50 people show up, with people waiting around for the show upwards of thirty minutes to ensure they had a good view.
This interest has helped BG Sabers only grow, with in addition to their club performances they also performed for halftime at a BG Basketball game last year. That performance went so well they are currently working on plans to perform the basketball halftime again sometime in the Spring semester.
“Obviously, if you’re a Star Wars fan, show up. But if you’re not a Star Wars fan, and you want to interact, come on over” Hammel said.
I asked Hammel why he thinks people are so interested in the club. Whether it’s for the love of the Star Wars films, or because it’s something fun. Hammel said the reason he thinks people are so interested in BG Sabers is “the flashy boom-sticks. People love the flashy boom-sticks from the nerd movie,” Hammel joked.
BG Sabers meets Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday night at 7 p.m. near the clock tower. In addition, if you want to learn more, you can find BG Sabers on Instagram @bgsabers.
