Time for another edition of Waxing Off, the feature that was recently nominated for a Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award. This week we've asked four talented female writers to ruminate on: Shocking college sporting traditions.
Reporting on the UCLA Undie Run was fun, but we had a feeling that, as far as college traditions went, that was probably just the tip of the iceberg. As you'll see below, we were right.
By the way, if you'd like to become a member of the Waxing Off writing staff, please email me at [email protected].
Jess Mac:
I love Providence College with all my heart, but it is a sorry excuse for a Division I school. We don't have a football team or a baseball team. We don't have any chants besides "THIS SIDE GO.....THAT SIDE FRIARS....GO..........FRIARS" and our fight song is "When the Saints Go Marching In" (seriously). Our mascot is a man of the religious order for Christ's sake AND hits more threes fucking around during timeouts than any of our starting guards. Perhaps the most disappointing shortcoming, however, is the fact that no one ever made up a lasting song or chant exalting God Shammgod (probably something about "thou shalt not have any other (Shamm)gods before me). So to make up for all of this, the PC study body concentrated on another favorite pastime.
Binge drinking.
One of the curriculum requirements at PC was a two-year long course in Western Civilization that was supposed to make us "well-rounded" and "good at Jeopardy." All of the Civ exams were on the same day, so the night before at midnight Civ Scream would be held in the quad, pretty much just an excuse for all the upperclassmen who didn't have the exam to get shitfaced and fill water balloons full of piss to throw at freshmen. Additionally, this was the chance for that quiet girl in your Advanced Writing class to funnel some Franzia before showing her tits as there was a vast array of streaking and flashing. The more modest streakers would don a mask (Darth Vader's boobs bouncing around in the crisp spring air was surely someone's fantasy) which was probably the smarter idea anyways, since the ubiquitous balloons of piss would inevitably end up hitting someone in the face, to massive applause. One year a girl decided it was a good idea to bring her pogo stick along as well. I'm positive that the Dominican fathers that founded our fair institution would have been thrilled to see a topless girl pogoing down the quad, forgetting the key fact that it's always a terrible idea to pogo when you're drunk. Inevitably she completely busted ass (also to massive applause), balloons were thrown, and somebody's video of it made it to Collegehumor (I scoured that site and sadly couldn't find it or the dignity I left behind).
So instead of the Undie Run, PC students suck down enough alcohol to kill Vince Wilfork, get naked, and pogo stick naked in front of the majority of the student body. Ahhhhh college.
— Jess Mac was not the phantom Civ Scream topless pogo-er. Or was she?
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Cari Gervin:
Yale is a weird place to go to college. Besides the singing groups, the secret societies, and the worst football I've ever seen in my life, what makes Yale such an odd school is its propensity for nudity. Give Yalies a chance to take their clothes off, and they will.
Every fall, upperclassmen (and women) streak the freshman quad to welcome the new kids to campus. Why? No one knows. The year I started, campus was in an uproar because Playboy had the temerity to publish photos of undergrads streaking in its "Women of the Ivy League" issue. The thing was, those people streaking? They were doing it to protest Playboy exploiting women in its "Women of the Ivy League" issue.
The consensus seemed to be that Yalies loved to get naked because they weren't getting laid. That, and it was funny. The top instigators of naked shenanigans were the Pundits, Yale's comedic secret society. Every winter they sponsored a "Naked Weekend," which included events like a leisurely naked stroll through the library as everyone crammed for finals.
The highlight of the weekend, however, was the Naked Party. Its location was top-secret, and invitations were mandatory. Mere rabble could not come to gawk at the naked elite. Nay, the party was for true connoisseurs of the nude form. That is, men who could handle the sight of nude women without getting hard.
One night I was out with my group of guy friends when we ran into someone who had scored an invitation. I had no inclination to take off my toasty sweater, but I was also madly in love with one of the guys and would have jumped off a cliff had he asked. So, we went to the party.
I had always envisioned seeing him naked, it's true. Just not while he was standing around a keg, talking about some else's breasts. For despite its nakedness, the Naked Party was a lame college kegger just like every other. Everyone got drunk on crappy beer and pretended that there was nothing unusual about the fact that no one was wearing any clothes. It could not have been less sexy. And unless I visit the French Riviera, that night is the one and only time my breasts made a public appearance.
— Cari Gervin is a freelance writer in the South. She blogs about her misadventures in life, love and sports fandom at unwelcomereturn.blogspot.com. She fully expects there will be streaking at her reunion next summer.
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Alison Shapiro:
I attended a certain largely-Jewish institution of higher learning in the greater Boston area, so scantily-clad frolicking (i.e. undie runs, skinny dipping, wearing skirts above the knee) were out of the question for the not-unsubstantial religious community in residence. That being said, the same community provided one of my favorite campus traditions: getting shitfaced on Purim.
Purim, for those not in the know, is the celebration of the Jewish' people's emancipation from Persian oppression, as outlined in the Book of Esther (which I trust the entire Deadspin community has read). Most importantly, Purim is sort of like Jewish Halloween, with costumes, sweets, merriment … and drunkenness. Jewish law states that on this day, one should get so drunk that they cannot tell good from evil. Though my school was certainly not known for its party scene on normal weekends, Purim turned the campus into a cavalcade of revelry … and transformation. That serious-looking dude in the black hat in your Near-Eastern and Judaic Studies class who never cracked a smile? You'd see him tripping gaily by with a bottle of wine in hand. The buttoned-up girl you'd see studying in the kosher cafeteria? Suddenly, she's the queen of the dance floor. Parties sprang up on every corner of campus, and, for one brief shining moment, one could taste what going to a real college with real parties would have been like.
For one night a year, the secular students like myself were joined with the observant; all religious boundaries were put aside as we became one in the spirit of getting drunk.
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Meredith Weiner:
People in college like to get drunk. Drunk people like to get naked. Naked people like to run. This is a chain of events that has become tradition at the University of Virginia, where "streaking the lawn" is essentially a right of passage. Rules have been established, and if you do not follow them precisely, your streak does not count. One must begin said streak by taking off their clothes at the foot of the Rotunda, the architectural masterpiece of Thomas Jefferson, founder of UVa. Then one must run 740 feet down "The Lawn," the epicenter of campus, where at the end, they must kiss the rear end of the statue of Homer. It is necessary for the vertically challenged to physically mount the statue in order to put lips to bum. The run back up The Lawn entails traversing several hills, usually wet and slippery in the early hours of the morning-i.e. prime streakage time. Then to complete the streak, one must run up the steps of the Rotunda, peer through the keyhole at the statue of Thomas Jefferson inside and say, "Good evening, Mr. Jefferson." Streak complete.
Have I streaked the lawn before? Perhaps. Have I fallen down the hills like I was trying to steal home plate? It might have happened. I may even have woke up in morning on several occasions with bruises on my feet, sore calves and hamstrings, and scabs on my knees-all telltale signs of a streak. Perhaps I've ventured to the lawn with the intent of mudsliding on a rainy night and decided to streak instead. Perhaps I've been drunk at 9pm and walked to the corner to get dinner and decided to streak instead. To be honest, the cops might have chased my friends and me. Maybe we outran them. It might even be possible that my friend had enough time to put back on his gold pants and dollar bill printed jacket before the cops found us and yelled at us to go home.
Many things are possible when you are naked. More is possible when you are drunk. And Lord knows, anything is possible when you are streaking.