College
was great, and I think it was greater for me for one specific reason. I'd really never been anywhere else. I grew up pretty sheltered and other than a
trip to Florida once,
Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana once to visit Ball State’s campus, that was
it. I often say, if you grow up in Iowa,
anywhere you go after that is fun. So,
for me, Ball State was the most exciting and diverse place I had ever been.
There were people from all over the country there. I was friends with people
from New Jersey and Wisconsin and California. It’s hard to make a college
experience unique because, for the most part, it’s teenagers doing dumb stuff
while drunk. And while I talk about partying a lot, I remember getting very
offended when people acted surprised to see me in the library. I was in the
library all the time, but I hid out on the top floor because they’d make a
party even in the library. It was just as social of a place as the dining hall.
There used to be these solid wood cubicles that were meant to divide the desks
for a greater sense of privacy. We'd take some breaks from studying, and we'd get
up and do flips while holding onto the sides. I could do a pretty good gainer
layout step out holding onto these cubicles.
My best friend Robin and our football playing giant friend Steve used to
do the moves from Dirty Dancing. Robin would run into his arms and jump while
he held onto her hips and it was a vision straight from the movie poster. And
this was when we were supposed to be studying in the library.
Needless to say, we were pretty crazy.
I was probably not unlike every other college student, except that I was an
athlete, and more specifically, a gymnast, which came in handy when I was
trying to get into bars before I turned 21. Butterfields was one of the bars in
town and on Thursday nights in the spring, everyone flocked to Butterfields and
danced all night long. There were other bars closer to campus, like the Chug,
but Butterfields was somewhat nicer and drew in the juniors and seniors. The Chug
was basically a glorified dungeon. The floor was just concrete and the toilets
were always flooding. There was always a layer of fluid on the floor that was
either wet or in the stages of drying, so it was sticky. We just assumed it was
a whole lot of spilled beer. Years later, when my friend Zork, the football
player, got married, we were all together again reminiscing and I found out
that that layer of fluid I thought was beer was actually pee. The football players used to bet each other
who could pee under the bar next without getting caught. The entire time, I mean for four years, we
thought we were sloshing around in spilled beer and liquor, but we were wading
in spilled beer, liquor and the football players’ urine.
Rather than get
trapped in the Chug, we went to Butterfields. We couldn’t get in the legitimate
way, however, for our first few years of school, but we wanted to go dancing.
Butterfields had a patio in the back that was open during the spring time and
it had a large wooden fence around the perimeter. Since I didn’t have a fake ID
and I seldom borrowed one from an older friend or a friend’s older sister, we
scaled the fences. Butterfields was further from campus, so we’d drive there
together, all dolled up with our 80’s hair and miniskirts, and walk to the back
of the bar. Since I was much taller than all of my gymnastics teammates, I didn’t
have much trouble grabbing on to the top of the fence and hoisting myself up.
That was perhaps one of the immediate and useful real world applications for
gymnastics. Getting over in my miniskirt was more challenging, but because I
could hold up my own body weight, I could keep my knees together as I brought
one leg onto the fence at a time. I sat there, perched like a supermodel, until
someone came over and readied themselves to catch me on my descent. I never got
in trouble.
The fun would commence with the scaling
of the fence. From there, it was on! We
would dance, dance and dance. Yes, we
partied a lot and drank to excess often but that's not what made the fun.
Partying to us was if there was a lot of dancing happening and people getting
crazy. We didn't always drink to make
this happen. Sometimes we would justify
that we had to drink because our bodies were in so much pain from gymnastics
we'd only be able to dance all night if we were a little numb from
drinking. However, during season we
stayed completely sober. People just thought we were drunk because we were so
uninhibited. In general, gymnasts can
really dance. It's a huge component of
the sport. When we could go out and get
an amazing cardio workout all the while, having a raucous time, we were
in! It wasn’t like Butterfields was
the greatest club in the world, not by a long shot. But at the time, we didn't
really know any better. All we needed to
have a good time was a DJ that would play the music we loved, a few fun people
in the crowd and each other.
In those days, at
least at Ball State it wasn't like getting caught underage drinking resulted in
severe discipline. That’s the main reason I never tried pot. We didn’t get tested in gymnastics, but I
never felt that pot would be worth losing my scholarships over if I ever got
caught. So I just drank.
I recently
attended a presentation on alcohol at the National Strength and Conditioning
Association's Strength Coaches conference.
Interestingly, all the data points to the fact that college athletes
drink more than non-athletes. It is just
considered part of the culture. Add to
the fact that those that binge drink in college are more likely to have
problems with alcohol later in life as well, drinking to excess isn't a great
idea no matter your age. More on that
next week...
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