It’s Saturday night, and you get a group of gals together to go out and have a fun time. With the stresses of classes and overall college life, each one of you just wants to dance and let loose. So, you call an Uber and head out to the house that is throwing down tonight. You arrive at the house and find that there is a group of drunk guys hanging out on the porch and some more on the lawn; you hear music being blasted from inside the house; and you see the purple strobe lights, indicating that the party is #lit. You get inside to encounter a hot and humid environment with music loud enough to burst your eardrums and the whole school packed into one room. And once midnight strikes, the hosts kick you out, and you head back to campus.
Sounds like you attended a fraternity, right?
Guess again, because that is exactly what goes down at sports houses at Skidmore.
One of the reasons I chose Skidmore was because of the lack of Greek culture, especially fraternities. This type of social setting fosters an environment of misogyny, ritualizes hazing, encourages excessive drug and alcohol abuse, and lowkey, promotes racism. But on the nicer side, fraternities are all about brotherhood, and I guess that could be said for male sports teams- I mean, if the brotherly butt slap to congratulate your teammate isn’t telling enough, I don’t know what is.
The sports houses at Skidmore are basically just crowded rooms, or basements, of strangers grinding up against each other to throwback songs from the 2000s, while occasionally having beer spilled on them or getting groped. I mean, if sweaty, packed rooms are your cup of tea then go for it! You also get to see your classmates make absolute fools of themselves (something to talk about on Monday morning); and if that isn’t incentive enough, you get to just dance and let loose!
Sports houses are basically fraternities, minus the hazing. Sometimes they are fun and sometimes they are overwhelming; but at the end of the night, the energy and the rush you get leaving the parties is enough to keep me attending! But of course, always proceed with caution.