Game or Addiction: Putting Your Best Foos Forward

Forget about taking that course in existentialism. Forget the entire philosophy department. Forget evolutionism and creationism, too. Don't even pay attention to Monty Python and his meaning of life.

Because life, claims a select group of Harvard students, is foosball, and, paradoxically, foosball is life.

"It's a subculture," says sociology concentrator Robert H. Greenstein '89. "I wrote my sociology paper on small groups on the foosball players at Currier." Greenstein says he has played foosball since summer camp nine years ago.

Foosball, for the uninitiated, is a kind of miniature soccer game. Twenty-two plastic and wooden men, 11 per side, are attached to eight rods which the foosers manipulate, allowing the players to perform such daring maneuvers as a "Z," in which the ball bounces off each side of the playing table and directly into the goal.

A shared addiction to the rather obscure sport gives the hard-core players an identity as foosers. "It's a clique of addicts," says Manuel Lopez '89. And Flora Chang '86-'87 says, "A lot of the people in Quincy recognized me because I played foosball."

Students offer varying reasons for their foosball fascination. "Really because it's there," says Lopez, who defines himself as "addicted." The game tends to "get a little intense sometimes," Lopez says.

Despite the "intensity" exhibited by some foosers, many say they were initially attracted to the game because it's a social thing. "I liked the people that played," says Quincy resident Megan E. Jewett '86-'87, to explain her initial attraction to the game.

Robert E. Brown '85, a grad student at MIT, returns to Quincy to play an average of one hour a day to defend his number one doubles ranking with partner J. Nicholas Dowling '88. He says he goes "there to talk to the people who play" as much as to play himself.

Foosers also say that the game provides them with a way of procrastinating. "It's a good way to waste time, especially during exam and reading Period," Jewett says. Robert Jen '87 says that one Reading Period sophomore year, he "stayed up all night" playing foosball.

Unlike other Harvard sports which require beginners to master skills and complex rules, the basics of foosball are easy to learn. "Anyone can walk up to the table and get the idea of the game in five minutes," Brown says, but, he adds, the best players spend a lot of time at the table.

Although the game is deceptively simple to the neophyte, really good foosball "requires extremely fast reflexes and quite a bit of strategy," says Philip E. Ross '88. One good working strategy entails "getting a variety of shots in order to be as unpredictable as possible," he says.

Warning--Foosball Is Addictive

"I was totally addicted," Jewett says. One day she played foosball from 2:00 p.m. until 3:00 a.m., but that was an epic night. When she began foosing in November of 1983, she averaged only three hours a day.

Some have managed to break, or at least cut down, on the habit. "I used to be really addicted," says Scott R. Panzer '88. Panzer plays on the Quincy House foosball ladder and is the House "czar. The czar is handpicked by the previous czar and takes responsibility for the upkeep of the table and running the ladder.

"This year I've had more control than last year," said Ross, who cut back his weekly quota from five hours to two.

And although legend has it that some addicts have had to take time off because academics took second place to foosball, not everyone takes his foos so seriously. Even for the foosers who rank in the upper echelon of the Quincy ladder, it's still just a game.

"I just like to play, winning or losing," says top-ranked player Jen who is "not at all intense" although he admits winning is "more enjoyable."

Jen's foosing partner of four years, John Cheng '86 agrees. "I don't think we were ever really intense." The game itself, not the outcome, is what counts, Cheng says. "It mattered whether or not we played well. We have never argued over winning or losing."

"People are really tolerant of people who try regardless of their ability," Jewett says. But the uninitiated are puzzled by the sight of the same people huddled around the table at all hours, discussing push and pull shots, and yelling "challenge!"

The View From Outside

"I think it's a very intense game. I'm afraid of anyone whose intensity for a nonintellectual game exceeds the concentration they would devote to their driving," says Dudley House affiliate David MacDonald '88, a "reformed foosball addict" who still plays about once a week.

But living with these addicts is not always easy for the non-fooser. While some avoid this problem by living with their foosing partners, others have to deal with foos fanatics. "We knew he played," says Jack R. Polsky '88 of his roommate Ross. "He's come into his room and curse and slam the door. Other nights he's come home in a fantastic mood," Polsky says. "It definitely affects how he acts."

"We think it's hilarious," Polsky says, but adds that he wouldn't care to try the sport himself. "It's sort of like smoking. You don't want to get the habit."

A Fooser's Guide

Although Currier, Leverett, Dunster, Dudley, Lowell and the Freshman Union have tables, Quincy House is the center of foosing life at Harvard, foosers say.

"Quincy House has usually been the Mecca," Jewett says. It has "the most active table" at Harvard, Brown says. He attributes this to the higher level of competition there as well as the strategic location of the foosball table. "You have to pass it to get to the dining hall."

Dudley House, which has two tables, has "intermediate players who play when they're not playing pool" and also a number of dedicated players, says MacDonald.

As for Currier House, foosing is at a "virtual halt" due to a broken table, Greenstein says. "The state right now is intolerable."

Although the Currier czar Philip M. Fry '88 says he hopes to get funds from House Committee for either repairs or a new table, Currier foosers are "very frustrated," Greenstein says. "We have to go to other Houses [to play]," he says. "We have nothing to take out our aggressions on."