Walla Walla University - Mountain Ash Yearbook (College Place, WA)

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Soccer, once the exclusive domain of foreign types and long distance wind-sprint enthusiasts, is still the exclusive domain of foreign types and long distance wind-sprint enthusiasts. It's just that the guys not Kick- ing that funny little padded black and white ball are now so much more diverse. And they no longer wear iederhosen. In the off season, the big scorers played football as piace-Kickers under the newfieId-goal rules. Just like the real world. When soccertime rolled around, whenever that was. a group of hardies got together just about every Friday afternoon to Kick each other around down on the field. These guys had padded socks and everything. Of course one could always pick out the novices - they wore shoes. Hockey, eh! The old puck and stick game hit new popularity highs this year - going beyond being a northern ethnic oddity and becoming a true sport ofthe working class. This winter sport even melted into spring in the form of indoorfloor-hockey played on that uniquely spongy gym floor. Our own Walla Walla Canucks more than held their own in several grudge matches with the absoluteiy-awesome Tri-Cities Flames. Hey. they had audiences and everything! Still, you can't beat the semi-annual Canadian girls versus Mountain Ash Viiiage beat the dorm in the annual Soccer Cup Heft; The racoueibail courts rabovei were packed all year round due to the sport's popuiarity. Tennis enthusiasts rfar leftJ were out in crowds as soon as the permafrost broke up in the spring. American guys hockey matchup for sheer gut-grinding thrills. chills and spills. Racquet sports. especially those played indoors, out of those dangerous College Place elements. were as popular as ever this year. Anyone who tried to get a racquetball court with less than two weeks notice. Knows what i mean. Is it worth it, just to lock yourself in a huge room with a small door, one dirty window. no bathrooms or television. just to run around a lot and smell someone else's sweat for an hour? Thompson! Scriven! Winslow! is it really ethical to take up two courts in a row? imagine your hot little self, rocking. one foot to the other, dripping hair in your eye, sawed-off racquet in one hand - waiting - in one of those high-ceiiinged humidity-boxes they call racquetball courts. The server squats and pounds one off the front wall that zags left - quick. but deceptively slow. You move. crablike, and rise on the bails of your feet, devastating backhand smoothly at the ready. You swing, and your senses are met with a stunning variety of happenings. First. your ears are met with sweet sound of mega- doilar graphite racquet contacting one of WWC's more solid assets e the wall. As you feel your weak ankles begin to turn and your wrist starts throbbing, your

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evidence. Never have there been more mega-buck im- ported tehspeeds chained to the ceilings of dorm- rooms across campus. In addition, WWC has to be the most unicycie-conscious campus in the entire North- west. Don't ask me what that means. Don't ask me to ride a unicycle down steps either. Custom-painted rebuiit hot rod bikes older than the Ad building have been issuing in a seemingly endless stream from a small house off-Campus. You'll have to admit that there is something vaguely disturbing about being passed while doing 70 mph on the Milton- Freewater Highway by a wiId-eyed guy on a bicycle with eye-biinding pink handiebargrips. Equaiiy spacey giant Knobby-tired Baja bikes, with the unique ability to ride over any obstacle from curbs and trash dumpsters to sequioas and steers in the road, made an especially impressive comebackidebut this year. Where do bicy- clists buy those funny little shoes and stretchy shorts, anyway? Bicycle gangs roamed the wheaty hills surrounding Walla Walla restlessiy until many timid car owners were afraid to hit the roads on Sabbath for fear of two-wheeled terrorism. Even the ducks at Whitman Mission began to head for cover at the first sound of a ten-speed derailleur. For every fuiiy-outfitted, Univega-ed or NishiKi-ed bicycle jock and there are hundreds, i assure youi WWC sports at least four non-thoroughbred bikers having every bit as much fun in bermudas and ripped sweatshirts on wobbiy-wheeled Western Auto Coas- ters. Bikes be not proud. Bicycling is a non-seasonal sport at WWC. Neither rain, haii, sleet, snow nor dead of night deterred these wheelers from their assumed rounds. When the snows came during this longest of winters, bicyclists just switched to studded tires and kept pedaliing through the drifts. Well, maybe not studded tires, but the side- walk in front of the cafeteria never lacked a crowded jumble of bikes. Whatever happened to skateboards anyway? Have there always been this many motorcycles? Seems like there were more of the two-wheeied crit- ters - big and little - than i can remember in my six years here. A person can't look out a dorm window without seeing some easy rider cruising by on hog, moped or dirter. There's a bunch of new ones, too. Must have something to do with either speed, sex- appeai or springtime. Autosports, which this year must include raiiies on the sidewalk in front of the cafeteria, and the Interna- tional Volvo Noise Championship, came back with re- newed vigor. Several serious attempts were made on the Seattie-to-Coliege Place, College Piace-to-South Fork and Gorge-dash-to Portland speed records. iSeat- tie to CF. stands unofficially at 3:28:42J Picnics, once an Olympic event, still serve to Keep many entertained, relaxed and fit. Though not neces 74 sariiy in that order. Here at WWC, picnics that started out innocently enough, often evolved into all Kinds of recreational pursuits. The intramural program at WWC took a quantum leap forward with the arrival of Coach Windemuth. Never in recent memory has there been such an at- mosphere of good sportsmanship and Christian camaraderie on the sports field, court or diamond. At the sametime, the opportunity fora much more intense play was also introduced. The Fellowship of Christian Athletes gave men and, assumediy, womem in- terested in both competition and witnessing a Chance to share their experience through sports and interac- tion ta word left behind by Dr. MaxweID. First on the intramural list was FIag-Footbail. Flag, once the bastion of theology majors isorry Alden and Chuck. . . i has grown at WWC to the point thata co-ed league was once again contemplated. What would Paul say? Following basketball season, the men's dorm re- gained its lost pride - and the Sonnenberg trophy from the village in this year's matchup. But, not until the third game. and only narrowly at that. iAfter a second game that was admittedly a biowoutJ Women's Sonnenberg action was anything but. Unless you were a referee, i suppose. Suffice it to say that the skill of the victors made a third game unnecessary. And a second one arguably so. Basketball. played for a seemingly interminable length oftime. was followed by volleyball, in a variety of forms, and eventually, by softball. tOr, for the real bad- dies, hardbaliJ Mounzain Ash

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Softbail iabovei remains extremely popular in the spring. Inspired by winter golfprograms from Maui, iocal golfers ibelowi found their way to the driving range to poiish their technique, For the adventuresome, scalingpeaks tfarrighti is a nice diversion , shoulder follows the racquet into the immovable con- crete of the wall. Then the little blue bail hits you in the eye. Your opponent yells Hshort! What could possibly be more exciting e unless it's standing sunburned and sweaty on a tacky green day court and having a frenzied machine fire piles of worn tennis balls at you? Badminton is an ethnic sport limited to hyperactive ambidexterous Alsatian truffle farmers with a flair for ornithology. Golf, the sport of aristocrats, old men and college students, spent a soggy fail and winter in forced retire- ment. This did not Keep men's dorm residents from holding indoortourhamehts, leaving spike marks in the shower and taking divots from the hall carpets nevertheless. Jogging, or rather. running, was almost left out of this essay since the author has a definite bias against beating his footsies to bloody little puips against the concrete, running from haIf-rabid dogs, dodging semiehumah pickup drivers, getting caught in chilling torrential downpours, slogging humbly home in armpit-deep mud, holding his nose past bovine organic waste depositories and all of the other fun that running involves. Yecchh. What ever happened to picklebali, the sport to end all sports?