What I've Learned in Squacquetball

Jan. 24: overslept

Jan. 26: overslept

Jan. 31: overslept

Feb. 2: almost went; saw something shiny

Feb. 7: overslept

I’m having a teensy problem with attending my racquetball class. Even knowing full well that graduation depends on my completing two credits of gym, I just can’t get myself out of bed in time to make its unholy start time (1:10 p.m.).

Luckily, the nice people in the athletic department allow a liberal six absences before booting someone out of a class, and even beyond that they’re flexible; only when you miss, say, 14 lacrosse sessions, like I did last spring, does it become an issue.

It’s hard to believe that my graduation from college depends on whether I can drag my ass into a tiny room twice a week and whack a little blue ball around, and even harder to believe that I’m being so lackadaisical about it. I mean, what’s the big deal, right?

The big deal is that after putting in four years on the Columbia club hockey team, after countless practices at our miserable, outdoor rink above a sewage treatment facility on 145th Street, I feel that my teammates and I should be exempted from the gym requirement in the first place.

That’s currently the case for varsity athletes. Of course, in no way does our commitment approach theirs, but the gym class bar is pretty low—if cardio fitness and golf satisfy the requirement, then toiling on the rink should too.

Each Monday and Wednesday morning (er...early afternoon), when I contemplate the jog to the racquetball courts in Dodge, I have this on my mind. I have on my mind the hours-long bus rides to represent Columbia against schools in four states.

I remember getting my neck cut open by a Fordham center’s skate (I have an awesome scar, ask me about it). I remember that I’ve paid to do all this—hockey dues were $450 a year when I was a freshman and sophomore.

That’s why I’ve been rather casual toward racquetball.

Dr. Bill Ebner, who runs Columbia’s intramurals and club sports programs, explained to me that because most teams have high coaching turnover, there’s no way to certify that students are indeed attending practices and games and getting proper instruction.

There are a few programs, he said, like kayak and judo, that he and the department chair have okayed for credit. But most of the programs go through coaches so haphazardly—the hockey team, for example, recently upgraded from a semi-employed carpenter/fossil to an NHL All-Star who scored a goal in the 1980 Miracle Game—that the athletic department can’t know for certain if students are in fact attending practices and games and receiving enough instruction.

These are legitimate concerns. I just think they should relax them a little to include club teams that may fly by the seat of their pants, but are nonetheless full of hardworking student athletes who wear “Columbia” on their chests week after week.

Don’t get me wrong—I’m actually a big fan of the gym requirement in principle. A lot of students need a push to get exercise, and trying to instill good workout habits in young people is Columbia’s way of reducing the size of America’s asses by 0.0001 percent.

When I finally showed up to racquetball class, I got a lot out of it. In less than five minutes of instruction, I learned that the way I’d been playing—my friend James and I just wandered onto a court one day and guessed at what all the lines meant—was a bit off.

It turns out there are essentially no rules at all. We had been playing a kind of squacquetball, using racquetball equipment and squash lines. Among the rules we had wrong:

—the bottom red line has no purpose

—the top red line has no purpose

—the center red line has no purpose

—the ceiling is in

—[Emasculating comment about James deleted by his girlfriend, the editor-in-chief]

Evidently, you can just whale the shit out of the ball, and very little can go wrong. It may actually be impossible to hit the ball out. I’ll have to go to class again—and I mean I have to go—to find out.