Subject: Callahan Challenge

Date: 04/21/2000

Author: pallaver

Is drinking absurd amounts of absurd items all it takes to win a Callahan nomination these days? Swarthmore College's Earthworms and Warmothers invite you all to participate in our:

CALLAHAN CHALLENGE

This Saturday, April 22, 2000 at noon on our practice fields. The Challenge, to be undertaken by: Patrick "P-money" Hagan, Vincent Pallaver, Charlie Ellis, Dan "Black" Schwartz, Jenny Hoedeman, and Sara Kates-Chinoy:

In the style of Jason Grove, to eat 1/4 pound of beef jerky and drink a half-gallon of chocolate milk, in the 10 minutes prior to the beginning of our annual alumni game.

S/he who completes the challenge first wins. Perhaps other teams in the region would like to send their representatives to enter the Challenge? Kelvin? Ben F.? Perhaps the illustrious Mr. Grove himself?

Proving our betterness, if not in grammar, then at least in digusting ingestion contests, over all the other callahan nominees,

Swarthmore Ultimate

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Subject: Callahan Challenge Results

Date: 04/24/2000

Author: pallaver

Well the dust has settled, the excretions have been excreted, and the results are in from the Callahan Challenge held on Saturday at Swarthmore's Alumni/ae games. At a break between the games around noon, the chocolate milk and beef jerky was retrieved and placed out on the field. Knowing that the field of contestants had dropped significantly, only four half-gallons of chocolate milk were purchased, along with several pounds of beef jerky.

Upon sight of the monolithic half-gallon containers, most contendors dropped out, leaving only 4 to challenge: Paul "Big Gay Mule" Wulfsberg '03, Dan "Black" Schwartz '02, Charles Small '03, and yours truly.

Charles opted to start with the jerky and as a result, was never quite in the exciting limelight exhibited by the milk drinkers. However, we believe that he did consume his quarter-pound of jerky, and drank a lot of milk, though in a lengthy time frame.

But the milk drinkers, ay, there's the rub. The paper cartons were opened, mouths tilted back, and on the count of three, Big Gay Mule, Dan, and myself chugged. And we chugged. And we chugged.

90 seconds later, Paul throws down his empty half-gallon container.

Simply astonishing. He staggered for a minute, then fell to a sitting position. A large grin slowly crept across his face. Then he fell over, lying on the ground, a little gurgle of chocolate milk spilling out his mouth. There lay a Big Gay Mule, in a state of extreme chocolate-milk-induced euphoria.

By the third minute, I had finished 98% of my container, but no matter how hard I tried, could not command my arm to lift the jug to my lips. Never had a task so simple as drinking seem so impossible. I sat for the next five minutes in utter disbelief at my incompetence.

At the eighth minute, Dan "Black", who was visibly struggling the entire time, slammed down his empty carton. This violent action was immediately followed by "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I don't feel so good." Dan proceeded to hobble around the sideline in misery. I was so humiliated that I pounded the rest of my milk, all 0.5 ounces of it.

Big Gay Mule by this point had risen slightly from his euphoria and yakked into a nearby plastic bag. Feeling slightly better, he rose and began walking through the fields, through the games in play, back towards his dorm. He was to return 30 minutes later, having ralphed further in the bathrooms of his dormitory.

Dan and I got ourselves on the line to receive the pull. Our combined ground speed barely broke 3 mph. We both had tight, painful stomachs. This didn't stop me for laying for the pull, surprisingly without barfing. I think we scored, but both Dan and I never made it past 15 yards downfield. I kept playing, but Dan bowed out, yielding to heckles of "Dan can't hold his milk!!!"

After my run of four or five points, I was feeling much better. I got down to the sideline to find that Dan had gone missing. I ran into him at dinner tonight and he said he spent the rest of Saturday on the toilet. We also chugged a glass of chocolate milk together to remember old times.

So there you have it. I think the current coed students beat the coed alumni. I think the alumni beat the current Earthworms. But the lesson and an impressive result are still out there:

1) It is very very very very hard to drink a half-gallon of chocolate milk and eat a quarter pound of beef jerky. None of us (Maybe Charles did over a long time) had anything left for beef jerky after the milk.

2) Our very own Big Gay Mule, however, did manage to chug an entire half-gallon of chocolate milk in 90 seconds.

Vinny

Swarthmore Earthworms