To repeat what AlcoholEDU asserted to all Dartmouth students in the summer before freshman year, athletes as a whole supposedly drink more heavily than the rest of the college population. But national statistics do not always reflect the campus climate here in Hanover. In addition to just consumption, might athletes also differ from the rest of campus at the pong tables? With a more competitive spirit and greater physical control, do athletes have an edge in Dartmouth's late-night pastime?
Pong Ability
Racquet sports would most clearly seem to have the strongest correlation with pong ability, and at Dartmouth, this appears to be the case. Athletes in sports requiring quick reflexes and good coordination in general also seem to be better at pong.
"We have to make a lot of sacrifices and are forced to limit our partying quite a bit," tennis captain David Waslen '07 said. "We do make up for it when we get the chance on the pong tables though, because we're definitely the best pong players on campus."
Other teams also claim a correlation exists between their spor and pong.
"Basically all the best pong players I know are tremendous golfers as well," men's golf captain Matt Uretsky '07 said. "I'd say there is a correlation of about 0.9."
"Unlike Rob Esposito ['07]'s claim that he is the best pong player ever, I think the claim that squash players are good at pong has merit," squash team member Ben Mandel '09 said. "Squash players have developed hand-eye coordination and this can be applied to pong quite easily."
"The hockey players are pretty good because of their hand-eye coordination," heavyweight rower Chris Brouwer '09 said.
For sports like crew or swimming, where repetitive motion is more important than quick reflexes, little connection is apparent between ability to perform at the sport and success in the drinking game.
However, athletic ability is no prerequisite for pong ability, and participating in a sport at Dartmouth can in many cases hinder an athlete's pong development by reducing the number of chances to play.
"The rowers suck," said Brouwer, who is a member of Chi Heorot fraternity. "It depends on when your dry seasons are. You pretty much don't play in the spring. The people who are the best in the house aren't athletes."
Frequency of play appears to override any other considerations in predicting pong ability. Though athletes might possess greater coordination and control, typically the people that play the most will also be the best at pong. In many cases, these are students without time-consuming athletic commitments.
Since a significant percentage of athletes are affiliated with Greek houses, athletes on the whole tend to have constant access to pong venues.
Most of the houses with athletic affiliations use the tree formation for pong. Although more alcohol is consumed per game, the larger target in tree levels the competition to an extent by giving players a larger margin for error. The heavier alcohol consumption associated with tree would help athletes, who are typically larger and thus can handle more alcohol than the rest of the student body.
Team Alcohol Policy
Undeniably one of the pillars of the Dartmouth social scene, pong is a tough activity to abstain from for an entire season or term. The nature of each sport significantly dictates the respective in-season drinking culture of the different teams.
Regular drinking just does not have the same impact on performance in some sports as it does in others. Unless a player is going to practice either drunk or hung-over, performance in sports like golf and sailing is not largely impacted by a player's Friday, Saturday, Wednesday or, in some cases, Monday night.
Athletes in other sports that are more physically demanding, like soccer or hockey, cannot drink often without a severe compromise in performance. In these sports, "dry seasons" are observed much more strictly.
"[Crew] is an aerobic sport," Brouwer said. "It [drinking] is like shooting yourself in the foot."
"Drinking in-season isn't an issue," remarked a player on the women's hockey team who requested to remain anonymous. "Each player makes their own decisions, knowing alcohol can affect their performance."
Different teams have different policies regarding alcohol consumption, and most are informal and enforced by the players. The men's hockey team employs 24 or 48 hour rules, which prohibit drinking 24 or 48 hours before a game.
"The hockey players will hang out on Saturday nights and come to meetings but not drink," Brouwer said. "They keep it very low-key during the week."
The women's hockey team also uses the 48 hour rule, which was instituted by the players, not the coaching staff. With a national championship in sight this season, the hockey team remained disciplined and never had to deal with an incident concerning alcohol.
"We never had a problem," the women's hockey player said.
The crew team confines any drinking to Saturdays during the spring dry season and with that players try to limit themselves to a casual amount of alcohol.
Usually after one game of pong on Saturdays, it is customary that team members begin to just throw away beer if they continue playing. The motivation to win varsity contests keeps many players more then willing to sacrifice getting drunk regularly.
The soccer team follows a strict non-drinking regimen, in which players will only drink on nights following games, when a game is not being played the next week, according to a soccer player.
A player who goes to practice noticeably drunk or hung-over will get a cut in game time minutes, though this has been a seldom occurrence for the team.
Drinking In-Season
Some teams' seasons last far longer than others, with a few spanning most of the year. Going dry over a season's entirety can be an unrealistic proposition in sports with particularly lengthy seasons.
"The tennis season is so long, lasting from before school starts in September right up until now," Waslen said. "So, it would be pretty difficult and unreasonable to have a completely dry season."
While drinking is tolerated, it is always expected that the players will indulge within reason.
"Since tennis is an individual sport," Waslen said, "it's definitely unacceptable to come to practice or matches while affected from drinking."
"We are all responsible guys who know when to lay off the sauce," Uretsky commented. "Golf is serious business."
On the other end of the spectrum, the ski team will at times meet up with the other competing squads the night before a carnival and face off against each other in a ceremonial boat race tournament, and members of the sailing team every once in a while will indulge in a game of black forest.
Within the track team, athletes' drinking habits range from complete abstention to in-season binge drinking, largely dependent on the athlete's event, according to a Dartmouth track team member who also preferred anonymity.
In an incident that recently occurred in the pole-vaulting contingent of the team, a player had to miss practice for being drunk.
"Usually when we have a really tough opponent that we have no chance of beating, or when it is a big weekend, some players decide to drink," Mandel said. "There are consequences, but the main punishment is letting your teammates down."
"There is always that one freshman each year," Mandel added, "who cannot handle their liquor and ends up, for instance, falling down the basement stairs and cutting his face open and not remembering this happening."
For the most part, Dartmouth athletes discipline themselves when they have to, and if for some reason they must play pong, they do not hesitate to just throw the cups away.
With early morning workouts and lifts, some sports just cannot be successfully performed when athletes drink heavily. Not all sports require strict moderation, and in those cases, in-season drinking is more accepted.
Some seasons last so long that remaining dry would greatly compromise an athlete's ability to enjoy Dartmouth's social scene, and leeway is thus expected. The guidelines and implementation vary greatly, but if you do see a tennis player across the table, it's probably safe to assume you're going down.
