It’s last Saturday afternoon. There’s no football game, no tailgate and none of the festivities you have become accustomed to since Arizona played Brigham Young at home Sept. 2.
You can’t even plop yourself on the couch and watch three hours of Wildcat football on the road (or as has been the case this year, listen to the game on the radio). The only game worth watching besides the surprising Oregon State-USC game was the world’s largest outdoor cocktail party, and at this point you probably need a cocktail to keep yourself from complete boredom.
So what do you do?
Throw on that Willie Tuitama jersey you planned to wear on Halloween, grab a few buddies and do something athletic. And you don’t even have to leave the confines of your home.
Remember, your parents are no longer here to tell you to stop dribbling the basketball in the house or say, “”Don’t throw that football, your mother just bought a new vase.”” And while you may have brought some of your house sports to college, I’ve provided several more you can add to your list, so when you have nothing to do during bowl season, you can work on perfecting your newfound talents.
“”You can’t pick up the control until you’ve finished your water, so if someone picks up five first downs and then throws a touchdown pass, you’re in trouble.””
House sports can be played in a dorm, in an apartment or in the trash-infested place you call your house. Here are just a few of the sports to choose from:
Kitchen ball: Though having a kitchen and some space is useful, it is not essential. Use a spatula or a similar kitchen utensil as a bat, but make sure it isn’t so big that it’s impossible to strike out.
With a marker, draw the strike zone on the refrigerator from the knees to the letters. Make sure the pitcher stands a decent distance away so he can’t just throw the heat by you every time.
For pitching, use a ping-pong ball and don’t be afraid to create your own pitches. I throw a mean variation of the change-up.
Mark spots around your house or dorm that signify fair and foul territory as well as how much each hit is worth. For instance, if you hit the Jack Daniel’s poster on top of the television, it’s a double, but if you hit the beer pong poster two feet to your right, it’s a foul ball.
And of course, you have your basic three outs per inning, but I would recommend a three-inning game at most, especially if you’ve marked bases to run to. By the bottom of the third inning, you will have broken about $25 worth of stuff.
Hall golf: There are many variations to discuss, but when I played freshman year in Coronado Residence Hall, we took a putter, put two empty water jugs together and tried to make it in between the jugs. First to make three wins.
If you live in a frat house, you might want to experiment with your wedges, but be careful, don’t hit the fire alarm.
Mattress jousting: You’re going to need a sliding floor for this one. Take two mattresses and put them on opposite sides of the hall. At the same time, each person runs and slides into the other person until they crash.
I’m not sure how you win, but I saw it on CollegeHumor.com.
At the end, one of the students goes, “”It’s the worst idea ever.”” If I had a nickel for every time someone in my house said that, I’d be sitting on a beach in the Bahamas next to Bill Gates.
Madden Cup: This is a drinking game, but for censorship purposes, we’ll use water as the drink of choice. Use 12-ounce cans of water and fill the cup one-third of the way up. For every first down, your opponent chugs one-third of the cup, and for every touchdown, it’s two-thirds of a cup.
As the rules developed, you now also drink one-third if you lose the coin toss, if you turn the ball over on downs or if you miss a field goal and two-thirds of a cup if you throw a user interception.
The kicker is you can’t pick up the control until you’ve finished your water, so if someone picks up five first downs and then throws a touchdown pass, you’re in trouble. Since there is no play clock after a touchdown in Madden, the person who still has water in his or her cup has 10 minutes to finish or else the game is over.
The loser of the game must drink a full cup of water. The first time I ever played, I drank 12 cans of water and my roommate drank 13 in about an hour and a half.
I suggest you lessen quarter length.
Hall bowling: Line up as many water jugs as you can fit and use a basketball to roll. This may create a lot of noise, but if you practice enough, you can be the Walter Ray Williams Jr. of hall bowling.
Apartment capture the flag: Unfortunately, you have to step out of the house for this one, and it’s best played at a large apartment complex, in my case, at the time, Sterling University Villa. Play at night, form even teams, wear camouflage gear and draw an imaginary line at the halfway point of the complex.
Make flags and hide them within the boundaries of the apartment complex. Make rules about where not to hide the flags, like inside a car or inside an apartment, and time-limit each game in case it becomes too difficult to find the flag.
Most of all, remember that diving into cacti in order to escape is really painful, and you will be sore the next day.
After the national anthem is over, play ball!
Roman Veytsman is a journalism senior. He can be reached at sports@wildcat.arizona.edu.