With the AMS Elections beginning a week from today, the Thunderbird Athletes Council executive team weighs in on executive decision-making, guilty pleasures, joke candidates, and how to get 'the athlete vote'.

The panel[/ub_subhead

Chris Howe (CH): men's volleyball, TAC president

Julie Sheppard (JS): women's rowing, TAC secretary

Angus Todd (AT): men's rowing, TAC social media coordinator

Fionnuala Pierse (FP): women's swimming, TAC treasurer

Cam Firth (CF): men's baseball, TAC events coordinator

1) What TV show character are you most like?

CH: Marshall Eriksen from How I met your Mother, because he knows a burger is no mere sandwich of grilled meat and toasted bread.

JS: Daenerys Targaryen because I'm a natural born leader and I don't take sh*t from nobody.

AT: George Costanza. I'm unemployed and I live with my parents.

FP: Mindy Lahiri because her obsession with junk food is on par with mine. "I have the right to life, liberty and chicken wings."

CF: Alex Moran from Blue Mountain State. We share the same goals of living the college dream.

2) What's the worst 'executive decision' you've ever made?

CH: Deciding to wear a new blue shirt with jeans to a meeting. No one takes you seriously when you look like a smurf. True story.

JS: Anytime I take the lead on navigation it tends to go poorly. I'm good at tricking people into thinking that I know where I'm going but I get lost a lot.

AT: The last time I went to get my haircut, my barber asked me if I was happy with how he cut my hair. I said "ya, it looks great," but it was like a six at best.

FP: I accidentally ordered the wrong training suit size for some of the girls on the team last year.

CF: Heading to Pit Wednesdays on nights before midterms. "It's only worth 25 per cent."

3) What's your guilty pleasure?

CH: Rocky road bars from the Delly. No study sesh in Woodward is complete without one.

JS: Ice cream and talking about boys. Oh and Settlers of Catan.

AT: Sour Jujubes.

FP: Chocolate! You can find chocolate stashes around my apartment for emergency use.

CF: Standing on the Pit ramp sampling $3 T-Bird lagers. Correlation to #2?

4) If you were a joke candidate in the AMS Elections, who would you be and what would be your platform?

CH: I'd run as Bob the Spirit-Builder, on the platform to bring school spirit back to UBC in full overalls and beer hardhat. I'd work to bring in a mandatory lunchtime break on certain days and give academic recognition to engaged students, such as participation marks for attending varsity games and assignment concessions for relevant extra curriculars such as attending a Latin club for a Spanish class.

JS: I don't really understand this question so I would be a poor candidate ... but I'm going to go with the cookie monster and my platform would be free cookies for UBC students.

AT: I would run as Rain, and my platform would be to abolish umbrellas by 2016.

FP: I would be Chris Howe, and my platform would be being a badass.

CF: I'd make my pitch as a part-time student, part-time construction worker. I'd have the platform of "No more cranes on campus." Politics is about stretching the truth, right?

5) Last year, The Ubyssey ran a story about whether or not AMS candidates ever catered to UBC's 600+ varsity athletes. Would do you think this year's candidates should do to get 'the athlete vote'?

CH: Go to a varsity game. Bring your friends, and have some fun showing off your blue and gold pride!

JS: Athlete-only study space. I spend more time looking for a place to sit in Irving than I do getting anything done. Or an athlete's lounge in the new SUB would be sufficient.

AT: The 600+ varsity athletes at UBC work unbelievably hard on a daily basis so that they can win games, races, tournaments, etc. for UBC. More often than not their efforts go unnoticed. For example, of the 49,000-ish non-varsity students at UBC, I wouldn't be surprised if the vast majority had no idea that [in February] both UBC's men's and women's swim teams won their respective national championships and I would be willing to bet that only a handful of them knew that they had up to 15 practices a week in order to earn those national championships for UBC. Any candidate who attempted to address this lack of recognition would definitely get my vote.

FP: Talking to us would be a good start.

CF: Drop by individual practices and inform athletes that there is such a thing as the AMS Election! For real though, that's an extra 600 votes.

Check out the previous edition of the T-Birds 5-on-5 series: Hoops Hopefuls.