Outrage: UF Bans Beer Pong

Eric writes in to share the shocking news that our alma mater the University of Florida has banned beer pong!

Just more than a week after the Princeton Review cited UF as the best place to party, the university revised its alcohol policy, specifically prohibiting some popular college-drinking activities.

No more quarters, beer pong or other drinking games. No more keg stands, where students guzzle beer from a keg while being held upside down. Or alcohol ice luges, where liquor is consumed through a giant block of ice... No kegs, mini kegs or beer balls would be allowed at all under the revised policy...

Fortunately, very few students over 21 actually live on campus where these new rules could be enforced, a fact the university seems to recognize:

The policy applies to students on-campus or off-campus, although Sikes said off-campus enforcement would be only in extreme cases

Still, it will let the administration feel that they are "doing something" to stop the problem, even if no one expects it to have any effect whatsoever. UF's new president, Bernie Machen, launched something of a crusade against drinking when he first arrived, and his attitude does not appear to have changed. I was not a fan of Mr Machen before for plenty of other reasons, but I honestly struggle to find any (non-athletic) positive points in his presidency.

Some of the local reportage on the story has a Ric Romero-esque flavor to it:

My journalistic instincts tell me that ignorance here is a much more useful tool than knowing. Having no idea what beer pong actually entails, I could assume that its a kind of mating ritual popularized at the University of Florida in the 1960s by servicemen returning from Vietnam. That would explain the rumor that Charlie Crist employed beer pong in a desperate attempt ti entice his high society girlfiend into marriage.

Wikipedia says otherwise. Something about players tossing table tennis balls down a ping pong table and attempting to deposit the sphere in a glass of beer.

Mr Grimm's "journalistic instincts" and wit are just as impressive as Mr Machen's ability to run a university.