Why You Should Never Challenge a British Water Polo Player to a Game of Drink

Why You Should Never Challenge a British Water Polo Player to a Game of Drink
by Jeff Lewis

By nature, swimmers and water polo players are odd. There are several reasons for this:

By the time the average male competitive swimmer reaches college, he has spent 150,000 hours in a Speedo.
Swimming pools and pool decks are covered with dense expectorants, commonly referred to as "loogies" in scientific circles. For the young swimmer, having to maneuver the minefields of pool and deck is traumatic.
Swimmers learn a peculiar life lesson when they get to escape from swim practice early after watching a fellow swimmer rise to a coach's dare: "Hey Falge, I'll call off practice if you lick that loogie off the deck."
The chemicals responsible for the peculiar hue of the swimmer's hair—a silver which exists neither in nature nor on any color wheel—robs the skin and bones of lown, the calcite that triggers the body's release of common sense. The result is an individual who is equally content to swim back and forth for hours in a cold pool, or to drink out of a bilge pump used for siphoning off excess bromine.
Upon reaching college, swimmers have developed bodies that certain personnel in the Mathematics department consider "hot." Another peculiar life lesson is learned when the swimmer witnesses a math professor hiding in the handicapped shower, so that he can watch the team dress.

By the time I joined the University of Sheffield water polo team, I was well aware of the above points. It was of no surprise at all, then, that our first team social began with several team members stealing a spare tire and rolling it down the main street beside the university. Nor was it a surprise when, after the tire slammed into a car driving through the intersection, the team didn't run away, but instead continued walking casually towards the car. Here's the gist of the conversation that resulted:

Driver: "*^&$*%$(#"

Swimmer #1: "Can you believe it? Somebody nicked that tire and rolled it down the hill."

Swimmer #2 (the nicker): "Unlucky, mate. Looks like you've got a bit of a dent."

Driver: "#$%$%(($##$!!!"

Swimmer #1: "You've got to watch out for that sort of thing."

Swimmer #3: "No. Now that's the sort of thing you can't account for, isn't it. A bloke just has to drive, that's all."

Swimmer #2: "At the end of the day, what it comes down to is lady luck."

Swimmer #1: "Well, cheers for now, mate."

Driver: Silent confusion.

While this type of behavior is universal among swimmers and water polo players, each country adds its own flavor. In Germany, for instance, pool owners force all swimmers to step into a trough of mucky chemical water before stepping onto the pool deck. This is not so nice. On the other hand, the busty older girls on swim teams often change in front of the boys, or wear the boys' speedos during practice instead of their own. The logical progression from there is for these busty older girls to play a special game with the younger boys on the team during sleep-over away meets.

The game goes like this: the busty girls herd the young boys into the middle of an attic and gather around them. They hand each boy a chiffon scarf and tell the boys, "We will play a game now. It is called 'You will give us the article of clothing that we ask for.'"

Sometimes the young boys refuse to play the game, and then down the road regret that decision.

In England, the greatest influence on aquatic culture is beer. No surprise there if you've ever stepped into a British pub, which is essentially an add-on to the average Brit's house—there's a homeyness in the British pub that I've never seen recreated in America, outside of the Cheers set.

Our water polo team had three elected officials: Team Captain, Team President, and the most important position, Drinking President. The Drinking President was revered; the Team Captain—who once left several teammates in the middle of Manchester at 2 am, without a place to stay the night, because he drove off with a woman in the team van—was not a respected position.

The Drinking President was in charge of ensuring that all team members were drinking the proper amount, especially during the official Drinking Games, which were held after each match between the two teams. Also, the Drinking President scheduled Drinking Practice after most water polo practices, so the team could stay sharp. Jon the Water Polo Player (our Drinking President) was a soft spoken, unassuming fellow, but upon entering the pub, he took on a stentorian air and commanded the floor.

The Drinking Games mostly involved cryptic hand signals and turns of phrase that, when bungled, required the bungler to drink a large portion of his pint. The amount was determined by the Drinking President: "Unlucky, mate, wrong again. That'll be four finger for you," meaning that the unlucky mate had to down half his pint.

I was not suited to perform in the Drinking Games, as I was unable to even stomach the drinking that occurred in the warm-up. On our way to the pub after leaving the pool, it was customary for team members to create a two-person Drinking Partnership. The partners would take turns buying two pints—one for each—so that trips to the bar would be cut in half (Americans foolishly attempt larger partnerships, buying rounds for many friends, but the English are wise and highly value every drop in the glass; one hand for each pint ensures that you get to drink the full pint and not a drop is spilled [the Germans have their own solution, which is huge mugs and ladies with large forearms]).

I never lasted longer than an hour in one of these Drinking Partnerships. My English partner would buy the first two pints and we'd begin talking with our teammates. When I was about a third done with my pint, I would notice that my partner's was finished, and would have to hurry up with mine so I wouldn't leave him dry. I'd buy our round and settle again into conversation, to be interrupted fifteen minutes later by a tap on the shoulder and a hand with a full pint in my face. I would again be a third done with my current pint, and would have to drink 28 ounces before my counterpart finished his 16 (instead I would wait fifteen minutes, hand the third pint back to my partner, and call off the partnership).

On the night of the tire incident described above, our team had dinner together at an Indian restaurant at about midnight. As with all swim teams I've been on, ours had a member—Darren, the backup goalie—who always skipped out before the bill arrived. You will not be surprised to learn that this bill-stiffer and the tire-nicker are one and the same. Knowing that his flight was inevitable, the Drinking President issued Darren a challenge: "We will pay for your curry out of the Drinking Funds if you drink a pint of piss. I will provide the pint glass. Laffey will provide the piss."

A glass was passed; the glass was filled. Without hesitation, Darren downed it amid a mix of jubilation and horror (even swimmers have boundaries, hazy though they may be). Later while the Team President settled the bill and Darren pocketed some forks—now that he didn't need to run out on the bill, he needed to lift something—a team mate asked him why he drank a pint of piss, for the equivalent of only six pounds. "Well, I figured that with the way Laffey drinks," Darren responded, "it was just a pint of beer anyhow."

He had a point there with Laffey, a practicing dentist who, through some loophole, was playing for the university. It was not uncommon to see Laffey staggering off well after midnight, wondering how he'd sober up in time for his "7 o'clock with Mrs. Stephens." I am steadfastly in favor of universal health care, but one of the byproducts of such a system is early morning appointments with drunken dentists. You have to take the good with the bad.

Laffey's flair far outstripped that of anyone on the team, including Darren's. In the pub after a team victory over Cambridge, Laffey noticed that his jeans were a little ripped. "Tear my pants off me, I dare you," he said to a Greek woman nearby. He demonstrated by pulling apart a foot-long slit down his inseam. A teammate pulled off one of his pockets. The tearing escalated, with the culmination that Laffey hoped for—the Greek threw him to the floor and tore out his crotch with her long olive-toned fingers. After a bit of rather Dionysian wrestling, Greek woman shakily hoisted Laffey to his feet and marched him out of the pub into the night. As usual, he was wondering aloud how he was going to sober up for his 7 o'clock.

If these stories aren't sufficient examples to tread lightly when British water polo players drink nearby, let me leave you with one more (this one I fortunately did not observe). During a post-match Drinking Game against Manchester, a player on Manchester—who happened to be one of Laffey's childhood friends—boasted that he could fit a pound's worth of ten-pence pieces (essentially the same as ten dimes) inside his foreskin. Never one to pass up a sporting competition, Laffey bet the player twenty pounds that he couldn't.

The Manchester player accepted. Ten ten-pence pieces were gathered, drawers were dropped, and pence inserted. As the seventh coin was placed within the fold, Laffey saw the writing on the wall. All ten were going to fit; this man knew his dimensions.

This is the type of pressure that separates the pretenders and the greats, the Jordans, the Pelés, the Navratalovas. Winners just know how to win, which is why—before coin number eight nestled up next to its kin—Laffey knelt down, extended his tongue and began to rhythmically lick the air, millimeters away from the low hanging parts of the exposed genitalia.

The Manchester flinched and dropped all ten coins to the ground. Laffey jumped up, arms raised in victory. But was this action kosher? Both teams' Drinking Presidents huddled, sorting through the betting protocol. After a few minutes, the result was in: ten pence did not fit in this man's foreskin.

And that is why you should never challenge a British water polo player to a game of drink.

Jeff can be reached at jeff@babblog.com.