By: Jeff Barnes
To the casual observer, beer pong is nothing more than a college drinking game. You throw table tennis balls into plastic cups, drink beer and repeat the process. It’s not rocket science. It’s just beer pong.
But chances are, if you are reading this, it’s more than just beer pong. “It’s not just beer pong, it’s a way of life” sounds like a terrible cliché you’d find on a t-shirt at the Jersey Shore, but in many ways it’s so true.
Truth is, the majority of us have sacrificed a lot for the sport of beer pong. Only a beer pong player would spend the last twenty dollars to his name on a tournament entry, even though he’s got nothing at home to eat besides Ramen noodles. We stay up way too late on school nights playing in leagues and tournaments. We head into the big meetings at work still hungover from the previous night’s adventures. We take off work to travel to Las Vegas and Atlantic City to play in beer pong tournaments. We spend hours writing blogs that no one cares about. Our significant others wonder why we can set aside time for things like beer pong but not for them. And if you’re Maryland Beer Pong player Ronald Savage, you drive from West Virginia to Baltimore once a week just to play in a coed beer pong league for nothing more than a bar tab.
Yes, beer pong is a game of sacrifice. I suppose we all have the right to make our own decisions, but in many cases, beer pong makes them for us. Once you get hooked, there’s no turning back. The question is no longer “Am I going to the World Series of Beer Pong?” The question becomes “How am I getting to the World Series of Beer Pong?” We seldom are rewarded for what we give, yet we keep coming back for more. It’s a vicious, terrible, yet wonderful cycle.
It’s not just beer pong, it’s a way of life
But few of us have made the sacrifice that Clayton Still made. In January, 2010, the now 23-year-old from Atlanta, Georgia was asked to enroll in the National Guard’s Officer Candidate School, an 18-month program. He performed very well in his leadership position. He was well on his way.
This past November, Clayton discovered the world of competitive beer pong. He helped organize tournaments with Southeast Beer Pong and in January, made his major debut in the World Series of Beer Pong VI. His team Busboys played well, finishing at 8-4 and narrowly missing the cutoff for Day 3 competition.
Clayton had no reason to worry about his position with the National Guard. He made sure all his duties were complete prior to leaving, and performed very well in his position upon his return. But everything changed when his peers found his pictures from the World Series of Beer Pong on his Facebook page.
“They told them I wasn’t officer material,” Clayton said. “They said I was too concerned about playing beer pong.”
Clayton was faced with a tough decision. Restart his program from the very beginning, or finish up his last two months with one stipulation: He must quit playing beer pong altogether. His decision, he said, was an easy one.
While the trophies, prizes and bragging rights are what attract us, at the end of the day it’s the community and the friends we make that keep us coming back.
“They don’t pay all my bills,” he said. “If this was something active duty, then I could see where they would have an argument.”
Clayton said that while he could have fought the decision, he decided not to.
“I’m a person who has character, a person who’s never going to throw someone under the bus to get ahead. That’s what was done to me,” Clayton said. “That would be like playing the game just like they played it against me.”
When Clayton’s father became very ill after he returned from Las Vegas, he noticed the outpouring of support from his newly-extended beer pong family. It’s that kind of atmosphere, and the competition which convinced Clayton he made the right sacrifice.
“It wasn’t the guys in the military, the guys I would possibly be going to war with,” Clayton said. “It was the guys on the other side of the table. The people that I met there were in the chaos and the crisis, more than the people that I trained with.”
People wonder why we invest so much time, effort and money into the sport of beer pong. While the trophies, prizes and bragging rights are what attract us, at the end of the day it’s the community and the friends we make that keep us coming back.
“I want to help grow the sport of beer pong and the family atmosphere,” Clayton said. “That’s what everyone should be in this for.”
