UNCW students' beer pong skills take them to Las Vegas
After four years of college, Jay Roberts has left behind a legacy. With years of dedicated practice, discipline and performance under pressure, the 6-foot-4 right-handed shooter will surely be remembered as one of the greatest beer pong players ever to graduate from UNCW.
Some critics might say that Roberts skated through his college career with god-given talent and no real dedication to the game. So they might be surprised that the 23-year-old psychology major and his partner, Brett Garner, a 6-foot-2 right-hander, have continued to pursue their destiny.
The duo, who compete as Folie à Deux, recently won the beer pong championship at Charley Brownz bar in downtown Wilmington and made their second trip to the World Series of Beer Pong (WSOBP) in Las Vegas earlier this month.
In January 2012, the young men, still college students, embarked on a trip to Las Vegas for their first World Series.
Jay's father, Jim Roberts, an insurance agent in Davidson, was surprised by the news.
“I thought, ‘What in the world is this?' I never knew it was a big-time Vegas event,” Jim said.
Roberts and Garner also didn't grasp the magnitude of the event.
World Series of Beer Pong VII in 2012 included 480 teams from 15 countries. Some teams had won through satellite qualifying tournaments, and others, like Bink, Bink, Game! (Roberts and Garner's team at the time), had simply paid the admission fee and signed up.
There were girls in sexy costumes, teams in outlandish get-ups, and the volume of the noise was exceeded only by the volume of beer being consumed.
Roberts and Garner had been playing for fun at parties and practicing on a clear, 6-foot table with red Solo cups.
They had been using the “elbow rule,” which states that the thrower's elbow may not pass the end of the table.
The World Series games were much more structured. There, the games are played with official 8-foot tables, 40-millimeter 3-star balls and 16-ounce cups arranged in beer pong racks. WSOBP eliminated the elbow rule to avoid potential arguments. The WSOBP rule lets players lean over the table, giving taller players, such as Roberts and Garner, a slight advantage.
Bink, Bink, Game! finished with a winning record, but they quickly found out that they'd need to refine their skills if they wanted to be competitive against teams such as Seek N Destroy and Boozingear.com Presents “Who Is Bobby Williams,” the top two teams at WSOBP VII.
After a respectable finish in the top half of the field in 2012, Roberts and Garner were determined to make it back to Vegas.
They were hooked.
“The environment is electric,” Roberts said. “It makes me wanna go back every year.”
They learned about the WSOBP's satellite program, in which a sponsor hosts a league and the winning team wins a sponsored trip to Las Vegas for the 2013 WSOBP.
Roberts and Garner tried for weeks to convince bar owners in Wilmington to sponsor an official beer pong league. Beer pong, primarily a house party game, hasn't caught on in bars, probably because of the space required to play, the potential for arguments and its association with binge drinking. Not to mention the difficulty of tracking down a wayward beer pong ball before it gets crushed under the heel of a cowboy boot.
Finally, Charley Brownz owner Billy Batten agreed to host the league on Thursday nights. Roberts and Garner's diligence had paid off. The catch was that they had to win the league in order to win the trip.
“We had lots of shaky moments and close calls,” Roberts said. “We had a target on our (expletive) the whole time.”
But like the Miami Heat in the NBA Finals, Roberts and Garner emerged as champions.
With his second trip to Vegas secured, Roberts took his beer pong equipment home to Davidson for Christmas.
“He practiced virtually every night,” Jim Roberts said.
Of course, Dad was happy to provide a little competition. He invited the neighbors to come over and learn the game. He even let Jay's younger siblings play. That kind of took the “beer” out of “beer pong.” But they still had fun, Jim said.
And even though he knew his next sentence could be misinterpreted or over-analyzed, he said it anyway.
“It could be a fun, family activity,” he said.
At WSOBP VIII earlier this month, Roberts and Garner placed in the top 10 in their pod, but dropped consecutive matches to Hall of Fame and Flydogs and were eliminated. Drinkin Smokin Straight West Coastin won the title and the $50,000 prize.
The next league will be forming soon at Charley Brownz, and Folie à Deux (a French psychology term Roberts and Garner translate as “two mad men”) will be hoping to secure a third trip to Vegas.
Jim Roberts might even make the trip, fulfilling every dad's dream of watching his son compete against the best players in the world.
Despite Jay's success, Jim still catches some good-natured ribbing from his friends.
“They say I sent my son off to graduate with a degree in beer pong,” he said. “But they all wish they'd had the opportunity to do it when they were young.”
Mike Voorheis: 343-2205
7 things you might not know about beer pong, as it is played at the World Series of Beer Pong. 1. The front six cups can be filled with beer. The back four are filled with water. 2. When a player makes a shot, a cup is removed. 3. Cups are initially racked in the same configuration as bowling pins. They are re-racked when six cups remain and again when three remain. 4. Each re-rack moves the cups back 2.5 inches, Brett Garner said. The best strategy is to go from front to back, he said. 5. Overconsumption can affect your game. "You want to get on that level you like to be on and stay at that," Jay Roberts said. 6. Distractions are part of the game. Opponents are allowed to move behind the cups and make noises. They might even say something about your mother. It's just part of the game. 7. The costumes are ridiculous. You might see guys in gold booty shorts, tank tops, sweatbands and knee-highs or girls with pink dreadlocks and fully exposed midriff tattoos. – Mike Voorheis