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As I get older, I take more time to reflect on the past. I’ve been thinking about my successes and failures in high school and how I was such an idiot back then (even more so now, some say). Even further back, I think about the time I stole candy from Vons and my dad caught me. I sobbed as I returned it to the store manager. (It was last week actually.) The point is memories are important, and there is no doubt that your most important collegiate memories are created freshman year.

There is much talk about the importance of one’s freshman year in terms of self-reliance, maturation and education. For example, you may learn how to assist your friends in completing a keg stand (education, maturation). You may also learn how to get your parents to put more money on your Bruin Card for “books” (self-reliance).

Your freshman year may be filled with memories of theft and drunkenness (and I can’t really remember what else), but what you will cherish most are the memories of UCLA athletics. That’s right, memories of brisk fall afternoons at the Rose Bowl cheering on the football team or warm winter nights cheering on the men’s basketball team at Pauley Pavilion. But those aren’t the only athletics you should remember. Because while you live in the dorms, you should take advantage of the opportunity to play dorm sports.

I believe it was the French novelist/playwright Albert Camus (isn’t it weird how you don’t pronounce the “s” in his last name?) who once said that all sports are best played in the hallways of dimly lit, musty dormitories – not outdoors. Remembering Camus’ famous assertion, I now think back to the many dorm sports I played as a freshman – games in which you, too, may partake.

Probably the coolest dorm sports to utilize the long hallways of the UCLA residence halls are desk-chair racing and desk-chair shot put. Another favorite sport is yelling at people in De Neve Plaza and then ducking. Finally, many people enjoy the ever-popular Frisbee. It should be noted that playing Madden ’04 on your PlayStation 2 does not count as playing football in the dorms, but nice try.

The sport of desk-chair racing requires superb hand-eye coordination, mental acuity and brute strength. In this definitively American sport, two contestants line up at one end of a dormitory hallway. (I practiced this sport in Hedrick Hall – 7 North to be exact) each sitting in his desk chair (with wheels, natch). When a lovely coed waves her kerchief, the contestants put the pedal to medal, propelling themselves down the hallway. Whoever reaches the other end of the hallway first wins the race. I actually modified my stock chair to make it more potent. I added a chromed intake, a special exhaust and some gold rims.

Solid gold.

In desk-chair shot put, a contestant sits in his wheel-equipped chair and is then given a heave by his partner. The judge (ask your resident adviser if she wouldn’t mind judging) then measures the distance the athlete has been heaved. The athlete who has made it farthest down the hallway wins the event.

Yelling at people in De Neve Plaza is a relatively new sport that has gained mass acceptance and mass appeal. In this sport, a player spots someone walking in the plaza and, then, from the comfort of his dorm room, shouts at that person before ducking out of sight. The person in the plaza is bewildered when he cannot find the yeller. The player receives points for each walker he bewilders.

“You might yell, ‘Hey, you, in the red shirt,’ before ducking under the window,” senior Jessica Mackenzie said. “Then they look around and they think it’s someone in the plaza. You get to watch their confused reaction. It’s a tough and decidedly intense sport.”

If you don’t like these sports, you can always play Frisbee in the dorm hallways. Unless you are a really accurate Frisbee tosser, something crazy surely will happen. Take it from there.

Oh, and, by the way, I wouldn’t invite your R.A. to judge desk-chair shot put. I was getting a little overzealous back there. It’s just that when the memories come flooding back, I can’t help myself.

Miller says, “Be responsible when playing any dorm sport.” Email him at dmiller@media.ucla.edu to discuss gazpacho.

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