Turns out, the Otago University Beer Pong Society is real and exactly what you would expect - a bunch of testosterone-fuelled guys who miss their high school sports teams a little too much.
Otago Uni and the student gremlins which inhabit this community have some very odd and highly questionable traditions. On the Sunday of Re-O, being the intrepid journalist I am, I decided to infiltrate one of these traditions. The tradition in question was the annual gathering of the Beer Pong Society.
Each year, a giant tournament is held to determine which duo is the ultimate pong player, and it’s everything you could possibly imagine. Initially, I thought it must’ve been a bit of a joke, a piss take, a bit of a laugh. But, I was wrong. The hosts reckon that the tournament is “the best day of the year” -- could they be correct?
The event was serious. The day had a cruel and sobering start time of 10am, with enough Southern Golds to solve the drought crisis in Auckland and a solid 80:20 male to female ratio. The seedy inner-city apartment and arousing costumes paired well with the youthful glow and enthusiasm of boys being boys. The prestigious event even featured a celebrity appearance from OUSA President and Critic Bachelor Jack Manning.
The team-mates all wore matching costumes. Amongst the costumes were the likes of a drunken Playboy Bunny accompanied by his Hugh Hefner and a slightly dishevelled looking crocodile. Some argued he was an alligator, but after a democratic room-wide discussion, by the evening it was established he was in fact a crocodile. I’m not too sure who his partner was as there was no Steve Irwin or Nigel Thornberry to be found, so that mystery remains unsolved.
To top it all off, there were referees standing, eagle-eyed, at each table. Their eyes never missed a moment, reshuffling the cups and ping pong balls between rounds. The players adhered to a statute book of rules, complete with subsections, which they referred to as ‘The Bible’. There was even a spreadsheet detailing all the different pools and players, monitored by under watchful-yet-intoxicated eyes of two of the hosts.
Between each break, the hosts would stand up and make the grand announcement of who made it through to the next round, amending the spreadsheet as they went along. As morning progressed to night, the contestants slowly began to fall one-by-one at the aim of the mighty, in what can only be described as the Hunger Games of beer pong. At the end, the Beer Pong Society even had a giant fucking trophy engraved with the names of previous winners. This was no ‘Player of the Day’ certificate bullshit; it was basically the Olympics.
The intense masculine energy which filled the room continued to elevate as the day neared the final round. The tension was like watching the All Blacks face off against France in the 2015 Rugby World Cup, or like Chad and Troy when they were battling through their final basketball game as the Wildcats. You could see sweat dripping from foreheads from the sheer amount of focus, elbows flexing into place to achieve the perfect 90-degree angle, and tears filling eyes while bromances were formed and emotions ran high.
The crowd had mixed reviews of the event. That’s not to say people didn’t enjoy themselves, but there were some contradictory statements made surrounding the legitimacy and truthfulness of the Beer Pong Society.
Despite the fact that a solid 96.8% of the people in attendance were former residents of an institution we shall call Celwyn Sollege, the society is open to anybody. One of the hosts told me that, despite the hype, set up and supposedly decades-long tradition it’s “not actually like a legitimate club, anyone can just come,” but “it just seems culty because it’s a [Celwyn] thing, but I promise it’s not”. Another spectator told me he “feels like the event has been going on since the early 2000s” however this fact has not been confirmed.
The event became even more suspicious when all of the finalists of the event were the hosts. Coincidence? I think not. Was this a truthful win? Or did it reek of similar dishonesty to the Australian cricket team back in 2018, a Sandpapergate 2.0?
Well, that’s one secret I’ll never tell. XOXO, Beer Pong Girl.