Beer Pong's Big Splash

As a college drinking game goes mainstream, young fans are calling it a sport while some campuses and towns consider it a danger

Andrew Kaufman for TIME

The bar monitors players' beer consumption via wristbands and other means.

At their all-night parties, theancient Greeks played a game called Kottabos, which involved flinging the residue from the bottom of their cups of wine at a target. Kottabos was probably the first drinking game to get really, really big--supposedly even Socrates played. Today young philosophers still like to mix booze and projectiles. Only now they call it beer pong.

Beer pong is not just the drinking game of choice for this century's twentysomething thinkers; it's a cottage industry and quasi sport with mass-market 8-ft. aluminum beer-pong tables for sale, a national tournament offering a $50,000 grand prize and a forthcoming documentary...

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