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Beer pong a sport?

This week's Time magazine contains an amusing article about beer pong, one of my favorite college past-times. I'm not sure the article was intended to be funny, but really, it is. Very funny. These hard core beer pongers are claiming that they are playing beer pong in tournaments because, um, beer pong is a legitimate sport. My question to you, pongers: Are you sure it's not because you're a 20-something college graduate who can't figure out what to do with your life (or maybe you can't find an actual job in today's non-recessionary job market), so you are just trying to justify your prolonged partying by tying some monetary prize to it?

My favorite quote, by far, is this one, from Billy Gaines, the co-founder of the official beer pong website, which also hosts the World Series of Beer Pong:

"Beer pong is severely misunderstood. It's a sport. It just happens to involve alcohol. People are not playing the game to get drunk but because they love the challenge of throwing a table-tennis ball into a cup with some type of liquid in it."


Really, Billy? Have you ever played beer pong? In my day, we played it to get effed up! And the better you are at beer pong, the more rounds you play, which means the more beer you consume. One doesn't need a college degree to understand that most folks, Billy, play beer pong to get drizunk. (By the way, readers who didn't know me in college, I was really good at beer pong...)

After you read the Time article online, sit back and watch this 5-minute video, Beer Pong Strikes Back, which the pongers made in rebuttle. (Really, you don't have to watch the full 5 minutes to get the gist...the message is loud and clear about 1 minute in.) Could these guys be more ridiculous?

Don't get me wrong, I love the game. But it's a game. A drinking game. And it is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a sport. Although I admit, I'm kinda pissed that I didn't know before now that I could be winning money and vacations and exciting prizes playing beer pong. I just checked the website, and can you believe the grand prize for the WSOBP is $50 grand?! If I'd known, I never would have let myself get so far out of shape.

In fact, I'm off to Home Depot right now to purchase an 8-foot sheet of plywood...anyone want to meet me in the backyard with a pitcher, some plastic cups, and a ping pong ball?



Comments

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Ah, that was good for a laugh. I mean, really. A sport that just happens to involve alcohol? Haha. And also? You can catch nasty ass things from beer pong, so, you know, drink at your own risk, kiddies.

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  3. ha! i love it that your bil is a pro ponger, too. a couple of my 30-something colleagues are big on the bp tourneys at the shore, too. so once again, i'm out of the cool-kids loop.
    no kidding, had i known it was still so big, i woulda continued with my, um, training.

    maybe i should have a pong party in our backyard one of these days...would it be irresponsible for me and my friends to be whooping it up with my kid running around between the tables? or, maybe it would be totally responsible and practical for us to start training him now, so that when he gets to college he can pay his own way with his bp winnings?

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  4. I play guys like this on a regular basis. I mean, they're still in college, but they will be these guys...

    On Long Island, the guys apparently always have a "money table." My care-free UD friends and I went up 2 weeks ago to my roommate's house and showed them how Delaware plays pong.

    We won 7 games and refused to play for money, and just rubbed it in even more as the guys we kept beating got more and more angry by saying, "It's only beer pong, guys. We're all drinkin' beer. It's only beer pong."

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