Generations of Cary Quad men will recognize the hand-drawn Risk table that has anchored student gathering spaces since the 1970s. It currently resides in the fourth-floor lounge of Cary Southwest. The strategy game released by Parker Brothers in 1959 is one of the best-selling board games of all time. But the identities of the students who created the Cary Risk table are unknown.

Dave Brozenick (E’77), whose misspelled name appears on the underside of the table, claims he had nothing to do with it. “Glen Shockey (AS T’05) was my roommate for a semester and Ron Tornese (S’73) was an upperclassman on our floor, but we didn’t work on the table together,” says Brozenick. “I vaguely remember that whoever made it put my name on it and spelled it incorrectly.”

Shockey recalls a core group of devoted Risk players among his Cary Southeast floormates. “They would have weekend-long sessions where they played and strategized,” he says. “With the traditional game board placed on top of a bed, the slightest jiggle would slide the pieces around.” 

That’s when an upperclassman had the idea to talk to the hall manager about acquiring a table from the dining hall that could be sanded, painted, and refinished. But if the three men whose names are carved into the underside of the table didn’t create it, who did? “It may have been done by Paul Finke (S’77, MS M’80) and David Rutledge (ECE’76, MS ECE’77),” says Brozenick. 

Those names also were familiar to Tornese, who graduated in December 1973, prior to the table’s creation. “I remember Paul and David,” he says. “They both came to my wedding in May 1974, but we lost track of each other after that.”

As for why students would put so much effort into creating something and then attribute it to others, Brozenick points to the jovial atmosphere of the residents on the floor. “We were troublemakers back then. We were always messing with other people, and so we got messed with as well,” he says. 

That’s how Tornese remembers his time in Cary, too. “A lot of the guys were always playing pranks on each other,” he says. “Although I assume that also was true of the students in the other dorms.”

Forty years after its creation, the table was refinished by John Lairson (-T’09) and Matt Heinemann (AAE’05). “I remember tracing the board,” says Lairson. “We had a wood burner and were really just trying to touch the colors up a bit.” 

Reflecting on the decades-old old icon of student life that bears his name, Brozenick likened its unknown creators to one of the world’s greatest mysteries. “I never realized that a table would become the Stonehenge of Cary Quad.”

Mystery Solved

Editors note: Following the publication of this story, we received the following letter to the editor, which shed light on the mystery behind the Cary Risk Table’s creation.

I was surprised to learn that the Cary Risk table, which I planned, designed, and constructed, still resides in the fourth-floor lounge of Cary Southwest (Found, November/December 2015 Alumnus). I was a residence hall counselor for two years (August 1972 to May 1974). My first year, I was responsible for the students in Cary Quad, C Unit, directly across the street from Ross-Ade Stadium. In August 1973, I was transferred to the fourth floor of Cary Southwest, where I constructed the Cary Risk Table.

The table was about to be removed and discarded due to deterioration after decades of service. I knew that many Cary residents played several games on a regular basis (Monopoly, chess, euchre, and Risk). I realized that five or six students crammed around a small board game was not the best situation for “total game involvement.” Thus, I received permission to create the table. I was fortunate that my counselor room had a relatively large living room, private bathroom, and bedroom. Thus, I had adequate space for the project in the living room, where I began the tedious process of manually sanding the entire top of the table and its four legs. After a thorough sanding, I placed carbon paper on the tabletop and traced a world map to transfer an outline to the tabletop. Then I painted the continents the appropriate colors: North America and Greenland, yellow; South America, red; etc. Upon application of two coats of paint, I then carefully added the names of each Risk fictitious country. Finally, two coats of high-quality durable spar varnish was applied. The completed table was then transported to the fourth-floor lounge. The six-month project was officially open for business.

Approximately 42 years have passed since the creation of the Cary Quad Risk table! When I completed the project, I assumed the table would survive for perhaps five or 10 years. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that it would still exist in 2016.

—Dave Vrbanich (MS M’73), life member

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