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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 9, 1998)
Get hosed UNL students are missing out on the exciting world of hoseball State University (this may be the only time you read that name in this paper when it’s not referring to the fact that the Wildcats may kick our ass in foot ball this year, so take this time to real ly enjoy it). My mom’s sisters and brother and all of their fiancees also attended the school, and it was there that the famous game of Hoseball was creat ed. What? You’ve never heard of Hoseball? For shame! It has become a legend in my family that is still glori fied to this day, and every college stu dent should be required to know how to play it Hoseball is a competitive game in which two teams try to score goals while competing against each other, kind of like soccer. However, instead of not being able to use your hands to move die ball, you cannot use any part of your body except the thrust of your pelvis. Excited yet? Thought you’d be. The reason you have to obscenely utilize your pelvic region to move the ball is because your “bat” (for lack of a better term) is a pair of panty hose containing a tennis ball in one of the i... T1__1_1_• . • 1 What concerns me is the fact that I have not seen ANY games of Hoseball occurring on the UNL cam pus. So what if you’ve never heard of such a thing until now, or you argue that bongs have replaced panty hose as the fun-filled object of choice. There is no good excuse for not par taking in traditional college-aged idiocy! Students today are preoccupied, with boring, redundant activities. : Things that fall into this category \ may include watching movies, \ doing keg stands and going to class. | Nearly everyone does these things, and it seems we have a tendency to do them mindlessly, over and over again. r / Fellow scholars, are you aware of what thoughtless repetition does? It sucks the emotion from the event. And if there’s no heart and soul involved, will your fun .. ever really prove to be the best that it can be? I don’t think so. What we need is a new W kind of excitement! The time for Hoseball is now. ERIN REITZ is a senior theater performance major and a Daily Nebraskan columnist. I was reading in Time Magazine the other day about the 30-year-old game of “Frizzball.” The guy who wrote the article described a self invented game where a pitcher would hurl a Frisbee at a batter who in turn would whack it with a broom. (I think it was the stick end of the broom, but I cannot be entirely cer tain. All I know for sure is that the event was held behind a bam. Makes you wonder what the cows were think ing, hmm?) This article struck me as uncanny for several reasons, all of which I will go into in great detail for your benefit. You (if you happen to be male): But I’m a guy, and I can’t play, because I don’t have any panty hose. Me: As hard to believe as that is, you can find panty hose to call your own. There is probably not a gal on this campus with a pair of scuzzed out No Nonsense that she wouldn’t be willing to part with. And hey, some chicks might go for guys who wander around asking for used-up undergarments. (Editor s note: She s got to be kid ding.) Yes my friends, Hoseball could get you a date! You (if you happen to be female): But I’m a girl, and I can’t act that way around my friends. Besides, only guys do sick things like wearing used-up undergarments. Me: Wrong, wrong, wrong! You are a woman, and you can do anything you dam well please. Besides, if you truly want to be thought of as equal to the guys in this world, sometimes iwca. iik uiuci leg ui utc uuac is lieu around your waist It looks like a Foxtail (another great ball-hurling game) but it’s attached to you and hangs almost to the floor. (Wow -1 didn’t realize how difficult it would be to describe this without sounding like a porn afi cionado. Neato!) The object is to move a tennis ball on the floor in front of you across the room to the goal using only your hose ball. The really tricky part is that the goal is the area between your standing teammate’s legs. The players get adequately inebri ated, divide into two teams, tie their hose on and go at it From the sick and wrong pictures I’ve seen, I can assume that there was one couple per team. (That’s a total offour players for the slow readers.) I’m not sure how long the game lasts or if the object is to score a cer tain number of goals, but that really doesn’t concern me. or ail, i nave always naa a penchant for ball-(or Frisbee, as it were)-hurling sports. I played fast pitch softball for a looong time and love to watch that great American pas time — culling (Olympic curling is by far die best Any true fan can tell you.) Although I’m really bad at it, I enjoy participating in intramural slow-pitch softball, and have even tried my hand at cricket a few times. (I only played because I wanted to yell “Sticky wickets! Sticky wickets!” obnoxiously for hours. I was able to geff tbe other team to forfeit through this brilliant tactic. Ha!) Another eerie reason the Frizzball article was so striking for me was because it reminded me of my mother. And my father. And all of my whacked-out aunts and uncles. (Don’t get Freudian on me here - I’ll explain.) Long ago in a place far, far away, my mom and dad attended Kansas Melanie Fale/DN JKflfeELJjf aiiwwuiu—jki.jt-v wwwmriw—(»—mu you’re gonna have to act like a moron, too. If that’s not enough to convince you, and you feel that you would need to get physically loosened up to par take in this “game,” do like my family did before (and during) all of their games. Drink! Drink a lot! (But only if you’re of age, and only off campus, dam it!) Nothing lowers those inhibi tions like one (or three) good shot(s) of whiskey. It all comes back to what I said before: THERE IS NO GOOD EXCUSE FOR NOT PARTAKING IN TRADITIONAL COLLEGE AGED IDIOCY! If you are bored with conventional sports or are simply a thrill-seeker, Hoseball may be just what you need. So try it out, go nuts and be careful not to throw your pelvis out of joint Oh, and don’t ask me for any panty hose - I’ll be using them in my next game. (This column is dedicated to my World Champion Tag Team SA buddy. You know who you are, you lucky stud.) Go your own way Students shouldn’t feel pressure to follow traditional university system of personal development and horizon broadening experiences. Students in the third type are so confused by the grandeur and pres sure of a large liberal arts university and of graduating “oh time,” that they seem to choose a major area of study out of a hat, because they don ’t think they have any other choice or are sim ply overwhelmed. The fourth and remaining groups seem to relax and enjoy this time of their life and begin to really focus in on a subject and skill of interest They may take a bit more time doing dungs, or maybe not but they know the ages between 18 and the lower 30s are a critical period for preparing for real life, with a job, holidays and the government university no longer is the place for intellectual discourse, research, ques tioning and answering. It is simply a means to an end. The university’s responsibility for producing well-rounded and well leamed individuals has been put into the hands of the students to produce their own experiences that warrant these results, which may not be that bad, either. But many universities have been transformed into corporate advertis ers and quasi-professional sports teams, which to the seems to disre gard their central purpose, which is to create worldly and talented individu als who will inherit and evolve the fiitiira the systematic method of our pre paredness comes into question. The initial semesters of a tradi tional four- or five-year university career is heavily weighted down in general interest material we could have learned in an extra year of public high school. Also, post-secondary education is thought of as something that should be accomplished immedi ately following high school and pur sued endlessly until graduation. Neither of these premises optimally prepares a person for adequate job preparation. If one looks at any job board on campus or job listing in the paper, one notices that almost all higher level job opportunities require a degree plus at least two years of train ing in the field. Well, how do people obtain this tvne of experience if everv iob relax and clarify your purpose and interests to yourself. If people say you won’t go back to schoollf you stop now, they are telling you a blatant lie. Personal motivation is much stronger than cliche, and a patient and integrated university career is the most underrat ed, but perhaps one of the most important concepts in preparing for the modem work force. Don’t let the system dictate to you how you should be educated. Experience the post-secondary edu cation you want, which may mean time off for personal development, technical skills learning and interna tional travel and/or study. Take fewer hours to really digest die material presented, take time to join the student groups you want and allow for emolovment oDoortunities GRAHAM EVAN JOHN SON is a graduate German and' European Environmental Social Studies student and a Daily Nebraskan colum nist Many students allow the system to run diem rather than working toward running the system. The system of post-secondary education has been established in the United States as an expensive machine that brings people in and spits them back out, with a piece of paper in their hand that says they have spent time studying a few subjects. There are typically four types of students at a public university in die United States. The students in the first group believe it doesn’t matter what they study because they don’t think they will be using their area of training after they graduate. The students in the second group allow themselves only a narrow focus of study and a certificate earning goal and, by doing so, deprive themselves But the system almost admires people who fit facelessly into the consumptive societal structure as facelessly as they fit into their univer sity. By doing so, the people are con trolled without questioning die devas tating consumptive root of a capitalist economy, which is not unique to the United States, but nevertheless breeds inequality, enormous amounts of solid and energy waste and egotism. But those who don’t adhere strict ly to the machine of post-secondary training will see its intricate fallacies and advance their personal and practi cal development in order to ready compete in the global marketplace. When one observes the personal and practical preparedness of other individuals in other parts of the world. /ui ui uicse meuioas may or may not prepare an individual for a future of happiness and good work, and the issue of ambiguity shows the weak nesses of higher education in the United States. Post-secondary univer sity training in the United States seems to have been transformed into a money-grubbing monster that con sumes thousands of faceless individu als and spits them back out to fit in with the status quo. However, I must give my strong support and agreement to the NU Board of Regents for its opposition to the tax lid proposal, Initiative 413. Here’s something to vote against! Tuition is already too high for every body, everywhere in the country. For the majority of students, the that may present themselves to you. Bottom line: Find something you like and are good at, practice it and start soon. The youths our age in other parts of the industrialized world are very prepared to adjust and improve the next century, and we have to be prepared as well. And this - means doing what we want, where we want, when we want and how we want to, as well as becoming well versed in the skills and beliefs that will forge our personal, national and international fiiture. This is a critical time for skills acquisition, so enjoy life and work hard. requires these qualifications? They can’t, unless they make their 10-semester university career into a six- or seven-year experience, com plete with jobexperience, thorough class participation and material understanding, extracurricular activi ties like student groups, pauses from university study and international experience. My point is, don’t let the system get you down. If you want to go straight through in a traditional manner, by all means continue. But if you are contused about why you are here or what you really want to do, take some time,
