By Jensen Boyd
Prepared in purple, with the Taylor Trojans printed on his chest, he locked his feet in place and patiently waited.
On your mark…get set…POP!
The gunshot resonated across the track as Bryan Jackson accelerated from the starting blocks on his way to a time of 11.01 seconds in the 100-meter race!
Roughly 20 years later, three high school students decided to pull a harmless prank on Jackson. A former Taylor University track and field athlete, he found himself sprinting once again—only this time, unprepared and in his own neighborhood.
After the Pacers’ disappointing loss in game 7 of the NBA Finals last June, buddies Jackson Teal, Sam Mosier and Brayden Swain wanted to have some fun to lighten the mood.
They decided to ding-dong ditch their friend Carter Jackson’s home. Little did they know, things would take an unexpected turn.
“His dad (Bryan Jackson) was right behind [Brayden] Swain, and they were in like a 100-yard sprint all the way down the road,” said Teal, a junior.
Around midnight, Swain skittishly slithered out of his blue Honda Pilot and sneaked his way to the house’s front door.
He knocked on the door, no response. He knocked again, still nothing.
Then he gave the garage door a run for its money. Not knowing that Jackson was waiting for him on the other side, Swain knocked with extra force.
Instantly, the garage door shot open with the press of Jackson’s thumb.
The garage’s grumble, zzhhhzzhh, stunned Swain. With nothing but regret and adrenaline flowing through his body, he bolted away.
Trailing him was Jackson, who slid under the garage door, eager to catch the “filthy animal.”
What began as a harmless prank quickly evolved into a full-blown competition, a race of age.
“At first I was like ‘oh crap’… I turned back and saw a grown man chasing me,” said Swain, a senior. “Then I entered flow state and put the gas on him. [I] just absolutely dusted him.”
Running for nearly a mile, Swain was able to outlast Jackson. Exhausted and defeated, Jackson returned to his house.
But when Jackson saw Swain’s Honda parked near the house, his defeat developed into determination.
Jackson examined the car with a flashlight, unaware that Teal and Mosier were just inches away.
Quiet as ghosts, Teal and Mosier were sprawled out on the floor of the car, covered head-to-toe in blankets.
“My life flashed before my eyes. He [Brian Jackson] already knows me, and I was like ‘Dude, he’s going to kill me’,” Teal said. “And if he doesn’t, he’ll tell my dad. That might be worse.”
As a last-ditch effort, Jackson snapped photos of the car and its license plates. He later planned on sending the pictures to one of his police officer buddies, but didn’t go through with it.
Once Jackson returned inside, Swain cautiously crept back to his car and made a getaway.
The three skedaddled away and were never caught.
For another trio, they weren’t so fortunate.
During the summer after their sixth-grade school year, sophomores Max Calhoun and Eli Overholt ding-dong ditched a home in the Farmington neighborhood.
After continually ringing the doorbell, their “fun” prank quickly intensified as Calhoun and Overholt were left running from an older man in his vehicle.
The boys hustled back to Calhoun’s house, but the coast was not yet clear. The man followed shortly after.
Being a young kid at the time, Calhoun was “very scared.” He even remembers hiding in his backyard when he returned home.
The man talked to Calhoun’s mom about the boys’ prank, cautioning that pranks like that could put the boys in dangerous situations. He even went as far as to say that the boys could “get shot” if they continued the pranks.
For some time, the man’s words silenced the kids’ eagerness that came with their pranks. Well…only for a while.
Around five years later from the first incident, Calhoun and Overholt, accompanied by sophomore Cole Porter, wanted to have some fun on Halloween.
After trick-or-treating was wrapped up for the night, the three boys decided to treat the house for Halloween by pranking them.
They rang the house’s doorbell one time. Two times. 10 times. 20 times—almost getting caught in several instances.
“To be honest, we definitely did it excessively,” Calhoun said. “Like to the point where I kind of felt bad. We just kept doing it, and it felt like forever.”
The boys pestered the man, constantly dinging, waiting for a reaction, and finally ditching.
On the final attempt, the man quickly opened the door and tried to snatch Porter – close, but no cigar.
With it being Halloween, the boys wore ski masks that went with their costumes. Without evidence, the man couldn’t justify that it was the same boys from five years ago.
And still, even after nearly getting caught, the boys didn’t stop.
Around a week later, Calhoun, Overholt and sophomore Ryan Lynch came back for that same adrenaline rush.
Late at night, the trio rang the doorbell several times, according to Overholt. No one answered, so the boys thought they were in the clear and didn’t think anything of it.
But, they were sadly mistaken.
The next morning, all three boys woke up, not to breakfast, but to a surprise waiting at their front doors.
The man and his wife went to each kid’s house individually. With them, the couple brought stacks of paper. Included in the papers was information about the boys.
“They had printed out papers with our parents’ phone numbers and screenshots of our faces from the [Ring doorbell] camera,” Calhoun said. “They talked to every single one of our parents about it, and said that if we did it one more time, they’d call the cops and send us to juvie (juvenile detention).”
Since then, Calhoun and Overholt are yet to revisit the house, let alone even glimpse at it. They both said they feel bad for their actions, but that the memories will live on forever.
When it comes to ding-dong ditching, there is one positive: unlike most other pranks, it requires no cleanup. Egging, on the other hand, results in an ooey-gooey mess that even chickens wouldn’t dare to deal with.
So when a group of friends found themselves bored one Saturday night, mayhem was almost unavoidable.
Carson Hall, Jackson Robbins, Keller Bartlett, Maddox Weddle and Isaiah Mullinix stopped by Walmart. They left with cartons of eggs and a perf’egg’t plan.
Simultaneously, friends Kyra Murry and Hayden Garrett were home alone at Murry’s house. Earlier, the group of boys told the girls they planned on egging houses that night, but that their house wasn’t on the list.
Later, when the two girls heard a car outside of Murry’s house, they rushed downstairs and snagged some eggs of their own.
As the boys’ car drove by, Murry and Garrett threw an egg at the car, jokingly. The egg hit the road near the car, but never made impact with the car itself.
So the boys carried on with their night, egging other houses. But the other homes seemed almost too easy–they needed a cherry on top.
They headed back to Murry’s house, prepared for war.
Parking the car in front of the house, Robbins throttled the door open and began firing on the house’s exterior, while the other boys remained inside the car, hurling eggs as well.
Through a large window in the house, the girls were able to see what was unfolding in front of them. In an attempt to stop them, the girls scrambled outside with eggs in all pockets.
As soon as Murry stepped foot on her porch, an egg came flying toward her.
“When Jackson threw an egg at Krya, she was like ‘Ha, you suck, you missed me’,” Garrett said.
But then, another egg was fired. This one hit.
In revenge mode, Murry threw two eggs back-to-back, one hitting Robbins and the other smearing on his car.
One thing led to another, and what was originally just a prank had fully escalated into a rumble.
By the time the sun rose in the morning, spilled syrup was soaked on cars, egg yolks and shells were everywhere, and to top it off, the cops were even called.
Consequences shortly followed. For Hall specifically, he was grounded by his parents.
Still, even though pranks can spiral downhill, Hall believes it was worth it.
“I would absolutely do it again,” he said.
