Quad sports offer welcome respite from daily routine

This article is the third installment in a five-part series appearing on Fridays on campus stress breakers and pastimes.

Okay, so maybe Christian Laettner felt pretty good about nailing that clutch jumper with 2.1 seconds left in overtime to propel the men's basketball team into the 1992 Final Four.

But ask yourself this: did Laettner ever get to play Lo Li?

The undergraduate population is renowned for its love of athletics, as evidenced by scores of club and intramural teams, as well as the student turnout at varsity games. There is something different, though, about "quad sports," those ritualistic activities particular to various living groups, mainly fraternities. Lo Li, a game played by members of Beta Theta Pi, is but one example.

Perhaps their popularity is owed to tradition, as each sport is passed down from one generation to the next. Perhaps seeing a group of guys tossing a football or playing a game of pick-up stickball stirs up a feeling of nostalgia; this is how college is supposed to be, one muses wistfully.

Quad sports serve well to relieve stress. Unlike the more organized and competitive nature of club and intramural sports, quad sports are more relaxed and offer a greater sense of camaraderie.

One distinguishing feature of quad sports is that they are predominantly played by men, partly because many of them are fraternity traditions. Although most male participants say that women are welcome to join in a game, they acknowledge that few women play quad sports.

"Women just have different interests. They could always start up a game if they wanted to," said Trinity senior Liam Montgomery, a member of Sigma Chi.

"If that's what you want to do with your time, who am I to tell you it's wrong?" said Trinity sophomore James Weatherly. "It seems like it can be a good chance to get away from academic pressures."

Though nobody is pushing for a student government resolution banning quad sports, the games are not universally revered.

"They provide a sense of constancy and are usually a sign that warm weather is coming, but at the same time they get pretty monotonous,," said Trinity sophomore Joanne Labriola.

Quad sports vary from the fairly common, like stickball and Frisbee, to the unique. Smith's fraternity, Beta Theta Pi, invented Lo Li some 45 years ago. It combines elements of tennis, racquetball and jai alai.

In the game, two teams of two players take turns throwing a tennis ball against a designated area on the exterior of Wannamaker. The receiving team must catch the ball cleanly either on the fly or after one bounce and throw the ball back with the same hand. If one team throws the ball out of bounds or does not make a clean catch, the opposing team is awarded a point. Up to eight teams can rotate into a game; if more teams participate, a team has to get more points to win.

"It sounds pretty basic and boring, but it gets pretty addictive. There's a lot of strategy in playing it," said Trinity junior Taylor Hinshaw. "If you just throw the ball, you're not going to win. Fast or low balls can throw off the opponent. You can also use the obstacles of the tree and the dumpster nearby to make balls hard to get to."

Although West Campus' design is more conducive to quad sports, East Campus has its share of activity as well. Sigma Chi, for example, is known for Beer Frisbee.

In "BF," as it is affectionately called, two teams face each other across a field and try to toss a Frisbee so that the other team fumbles it.. A team wins when it amasses a three-point lead.

Trinity junior Tony Cesarano, a Sigma Chi brother, stresses that the game is more of a bonding activity than a competition.

"A lot of times, we spend more time hanging out between games than actually playing," Cesarano said.

Like most quad sports, BF is rife with tradition. It is always played at the same site on Saturdays at 1 p.m. Players must always have a bottle in hand, though fraternity members insist that it does not have to contain alcohol.

"We traditionally buy the cheapest beer we can find, either Black Label or Natty Bo [National Bohemian]," Cesarano said, "and the game isn't over until all the beer is gone." Players also don wacky costumes such as karate outfits or woman's underwear, he said.

Enthusiasts of other quad sports stick just as faithfully to their sport of choice. For example, in Theta Chi stickball, home plate is the drain grate in front of York, and the game is traditionally played with a shovel handle purchased by a brother from a hardware store.

"I suppose we could use a bat, but that's just the way we do it," Nelson said. "Though I think a bat might carry the ball too far. This way, it's challenging but not impossible to hit home runs." And what accolades do sluggers typically receive? "If you hit a home run, you have to go get the ball."

One quad sport, "Toss," is a tradition that has become shrouded in secrecy. When asked to describe the game, players respond, "No comment," or, "I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you." They also refuse to identify themselves with a fraternity or other student group, though rumor has it that a good portion of the Toss-playing contingency belongs to the Phi Delta Theta fraternity.

Toss is one of the more eccentric brands of quad sports. Players stand in a circle and, while holding a can of Colt 45 in one hand, randomly toss a football to one another. There does not appear to be much strategy involved, and the game itself is almost secondary to the boisterous conversation and goofy behavior that accompanies it.

Toss seems to aggravate passersby more than any other quad sport.

"It's my least favorite one, that one where they toss the football around," Labriola said.

Theta Chi has also gotten some flack for their game of stickball, which sometimes leads to broken windows, particularly in the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity section.

"Last year, people in Random House [the former occupants of House F] didn't like it all that much. But the people in Alpha Phi Alpha this year get even more upset. I don't know, maybe it's a kind of a fraternity versus fraternity thing," Nelson said.

It's miraculous that quad sport enthusiasts manage to stay out of trouble as much as they do, considering some such sports are in defiance of University regulations. As stated in the Undergraduate Judicial code, "Recreational use of [the Chapel, academic, or main residential quadrangles], in addition to East Campus main quadrangles, is prohibited. Such use includes, but is not limited to, football and volleyball games, organized Frisbee competitions, etc."

Paul Bumbalough, assistant dean of student development in charge of judicial affairs, said the banning of organized sports on the quad is backed by practical reasons.

"Large group games can cause damage to lawns. Passersby have been known to object to the language they hear coming from quad sports and are sometimes knocked over by someone going for a ball," Bumbalough said. "There is also a concern that when these games get too large, they become drinking games more than recreational games."

There has been at least one case of judicial action brought against a group of quad sport players. About two years ago, a group of Sigma Chi brothers were playing Beer Frisbee on the main quad of East when one participant publicly urinated on the quad. This caught the attention of a Public Safety officer, who busted the entire group for playing a drinking game, another violation of University policy. BF is now played in another, less populous area of campus.

For all the hustle and bustle, toil and trouble that most students encounter in their travails, quad sports seem to offer a refuge from the daily grind. As one Toss player said, borrowing from the film Bull Durham, "You throw the ball. You catch the ball. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. SometimesÉ it rains."

Ah, if only the rest of life were as simple.