Kickball 2007 - The Dynasty Conitinues

Where is Bryant Gumbel When You Need Him

Real Sports in America, yes there is the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, NCAA, PGA, and more, but most American's are not fortunate enough to have enough talent to participate in these elite professional and collegiate leagues. Sports however, play on, it is part of the American way of life, talent or no. Whether it is playing a friendly game of football with your family on Thanksgiving or maybe playing some intramurals sports during college, people enjoy participating in competitive sports. One avenue people pursue to play, is bar sports. Many times bars will hold, softball leagues, volleyball leagues, dart tournaments, or maybe even a pool league. Today's story talks about a true American sport, one most people haven't played since grade school, kickball!

Past Kickball experiences

Kickball with me and my group of friends is not a new concept, in fact our first kickball tournament was in November 2003. I entitle this our "first, failed kickball experiment". At the time I was in the marketing organization AMA, and there was an AMA sponsored event for a kickball tournament. I brought this info to my roomates, and we decided we pretty much had to get a team.

After rounding up about 10-15 of our close friends we decided that 8 am is pretty early, and no one wanted to get up that early. Solution...pull an all nighter! This seemed like a great idea, that way we were good and tipsy by tournament start. Another idea, buy a quarter barrel to take the lakefront with us to keep the booze in our blood.

This night before, this all nighter, is forever termed the "Coaster Fight". What do a bunch of 19 and 20 year olds do with themselves when annhilated and decide to not go to bed, act like little children of course! Justin, my roomate, worked at a hotel bar and had brought about 500,000 Miller Lite coasters, and once one person got the idea to throw one, it turned into 500,000 flying coasters. Thankfully this was all caught on camera. We also decided to do calesthenics in the front yard at 7am, I often wonder what people driving to work thought about this.

First Failed Kickball - 7am


So, we get to the park, and I honestly don't remember how we did, I think we won 1 or 2 games, not sure really. All you need to know: Jake R. shaved a J in his chest, Tim wore a mullet wig, Bitch painted a fu manchu and passed out in the truck, and I managed to tackle a cripple OOPS! We find out that the bar across the street, The College Pub, was holding a pitcher racing tournament. This was more our style, so naturally us underagers go into the bar. After 2/3 of our team was kicked out of the bar (the ones without fake IDs), us remaining drank as many pitchers as we possibly could....and since we were already drunk and had no sleep, it wasn't too many, in fact we may have finished last in that. But this will be fuel to the fire! This is also important to note, it was my first time ever in the College Pub, a place I will soon spend most of my money on.

February 2004, the College Pub was hosting its own kickball tournament on the ice! Unfortunately, I was not 21 yet, but many of us were now, and we also had the "Irish" guys who were 2 years older than us. I don't know what happened since I went to LaCrosse that weekend, but I do know we won the pitcher racing trophy but lost the kickball.



February 2005, we are all 21 now and looking to repeat our drinking championship! Last year we won it handily, but this year we met up with a formidable opponent, the dreaded Harold's! We both came with one thing on our mind, drinking trophy. We no longer cared about the kickball, in fact we forfeited the quarterfinal game to stay and drink. On this day, things got intense, and our team from last year was split in two! The "Irish" guys made their own team knowing that us "Blue House" people were all 21 and could hold our own. Well, the blue house was ahead of the Irish, but the Harold's were ahead of the Blue House. There was fights over this, I kid you not! In a move that might rank up with Hitler's decision to invade Russia, the Harolds's started the chant "FUCK THE BLUE HOUSE!" This of course infuriated us as well as our friends "The Irish", we struck a deal that they would drink on our team and soon we had a commanding lead and would take home the 2nd straight drinking trophy with about 250 pitchers drank.






February 2006, this time we were all together from the start again the Harold's have been talking smack for a year now, claiming they will win this time around, we of course could not let this happen. This year there was no ice for the kickball event either, but it didn't matter we lost 2 in a row. Our goal was 300 pitchers, I think we finished with 295, well ahead of the already passed out Harold's, the threepeat was acheived. Most figured this to be the last hurrah, after all we were all out of school, and would be yet another year older in 2007 with less tolerance. It was decided though in December 2006 that we would indeed pursue a 4th!

2006 drinking champs - 3peat!

The 2006 Trophy

Events of Kickball 2007


The T-Shirts were in, the contestants ready, and for once no one went out the night before. We were fresh and ready to go. This year there was ice, in fact, it was sub zero temperature. It was F'ing cold!


I arrive at 8 am to our team already drinking, right now, we are few in numbers compared to the Harold's, but one of our strengths is our laziness. We get reinforcements throughout the day to help pump up the drunks and it is always good to get some fresh livers in the game.



Game 1 of kickball
I adorn my ski goggles and rediculous Packers headband and we head out on top of Cravath Lake. We played "God's gift to Earth" Which I think was made up of the UW-Whitewater baseball team. It was a sort of boring game, they had won 1-0, and after plenty of slips on the ice and enduring the cold, it was time to focus on drinking.


I walk back in to see more of our friends had arrived, but we seemed to be down early on the pitcher count. No worries, they always start fast then fade off, we still had half of our team not there yet. Naturally, I wore safety glasses and one of my favorite hats. The hat is an old school style hat, but it is green and has written in yellow "Bears Suck". This was a great hat today, for the Bears were going to be playing in Superbowl XLI the next day, and since I we are in Wisconsin (Packer Country) the hat was widely loved. It was nice to catch up with old friends. All the old Blue House roomates were back together in Whitewater, the boys of 137 Prairie (Irish) were back in town, then all of the other friends who now live scattered throughout the state were all back and ready for a good old fashioned, all day drunk.


Game 2
I'm a littler drunker, but it is still cold. It appears my buddy Bernard was well prepared though, with a complete ski mask, massive boots, and hand warmers. I think this was the luck we need, for we won 2-0. After a good round of "Good Games" it was time to rush back in to warm up and drink more beer.


Here is where things start to get blurry, I can no longer drink like I could 2 years ago. Two years ago, I drank almost every night, but now with work, I no longer have my liver trained. What is nice from after the first Ice Kickball, is we are now mostly friends with the Harold's. There was taunting, but no more bad blood. I think the other teams aside from us two, quickly realized they were not going to be winning the drinking trophy. I glanced over at the board, we were still down, but that was not the worry, right now, the Badgers were about to play Northwestern in basketball. Well, the won, after a round of the "Budweiser Song" it was time to play again.


Game 3
I am just going to say we lost 21-0 and were eliminated


STILL DOWN!! And it wasn't looking good for us, the dynasty appeared to be over, but oh well it was a good run. Many people start to file home for a nap, it is late afternoon and only a couple hours to go in the pitcher races. Those who remained from the our teams kept the drinking going, no matter how drunk they were already. I think I blacked out now.


Next memory, Gumby (owner of the Pub) hands us the trophy! WE DID IT, somehow. It was a rush to gather our three previous trophies and flaunt all 4 in everyone's face. Pictures were taken of the champs, smiling laughing.....now, pass out!

The Harold's in 2007

I was hungry, so I walk to Rosa's Pizza to get the best Italian Beef in the world, it is dark now, and I think in my drunken mind, it was bar time. I go back to my friend's place on Boone Ct, eat my food, take off my pants, and pass out. I wake up at 1:30, realize that no one went back out, then went back to bed.


Morning After
I go back to see my triple E friends, and was asked how we did. Naturally, I beam and say we won! Everyone seems shocked, they had left to what seemed like an obvious defeat. I call my roomate Mike, inform him we did win. He is shocked because he too left early and then was told by others who left after him that we lost. He was happy to hear, but was quickly pained by the thought that we might have to try for #5!

2007 Champs - 4 Time Drinking Champs

February 2008 anyone?