Can You Do The Running Man? University Of Maryland Basketball Team Starts A New Trend

Back in the day, the “Running Man” was a dance where you pretended to run backwards to the beat of a song. Now the University of Maryland basketball team has completely changed the meaning of the Running Man. It all began three weeks ago when the Maryland Terrapins guard Jared Nickens posted this video on his Instagram:

The video shows Maryland teammates Jaylen Brantley and Damonte Dodd dancing to the popular ’90s hit, “My Boo” by Ghost Town DJs. After that, Brantley and Nickens issued the challenge on Instagram asking, “Who wanna battle?” And thus the #RunningManChallenge was born.

Since then the teammates have posted a couple more videos doing the same dance to the same song but in different places. The dance looks like a newer rendition of the traditional running man, but with the guys own twist on it. With each new video, their dances — and where they choose to dance — gets a bit more creative.

Since challenging people to make their own wacky and fun videos to the song, adding their own style and moves to the dance, many other college basketball teams have quickly jumped in on the fun. Check out the University of Miami team putting their own spin on the #RunningManChallenge in their locker room:

Even the NCAA champs, Villanova, had to get in on the action with their own #RunningManChallenge. They really got into, throwing out some of their crazy dance moves, and really showing off their stuff.

The #RunningManChallenge has spread far and wide since then. Now other college sports teams are getting in on the action. Rutger’s football team posted their own version of the craze on Twitter yesterday.

The Ring of Honor… Gone wrong! pic.twitter.com/PI9Vi0c7HS

— Chris Ash (@CoachChrisAsh) April 22, 2016

The #RunningManChallenge has even filtered into the NBA. According to Tech Times, Miami Heat rookie Justise Winslow posted his own pair of videos with his sister doing the Running Man.

NBA player doing the Running Man Challenge https://t.co/HlQlTEimUY pic.twitter.com/neFqZop45f

— Jolq Benavides (@JolqBenavides) April 21, 2016

After that, it’s no surprise the #RunningManChallenge has gone viral, even stepping outside of the sporting world and into everyone’s lives. Just check out this Army edition of the craze.

https://www.facebook.com/blasian5d/videos/1539278429715235/

Even the campus police at Xavier University got in on the challenge.

There’s so many Running Man challenge videos now someone even made a Twitter account dedicated to them and it now has 11,700 followers and is still growing. It’s clear the #RunningManChallenge has become a phenomenon.

The challenge has gained so much momentum and popularity, “My Boo,” is making a resurgence in the music industry. Currently, the song has creeped it’s way up to number 114 on the iTunes music charts and will probably continue to climb until this craze begins to fade, which probably won’t be for a while.

Every day there seems to be a new #RunningManChallenge video and they seem to be getting bigger and crazier with each new one.

Vikings. Challenge? https://t.co/kO50A3nGON #fhsspirit #allinvikes

— Fremd Softball (@FremdSoftball) April 21, 2016

Although these challenges are still mostly centered around college students, that hasn’t stopped everyone from getting in on the fun. From daddy/daughter videos, to high school sports teams, to newscasters, the #RunningManChallenge is spreading like wildfire. It doesn’t look like the challenge has gone worldwide yet, but it’s only a matter of time. With something this fun that allows people to be creative and put their own twists on it, everyone’s going to want to make their own videos.

You can check out more #RunningManChallenge videos on Twitter and Instagram.

[Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images]