Searching for quintessentially Princeton? Try croquet

Under a bright, cloudless sky, I spent last Thursday afternoon enjoying one of our nation's great sporting traditions. I heard the distinctive thwack of ball and wood making solid contact, smelled the lush grass and smoldering cigars and listened to the enthusiastic chatter of the competitors.

No, I wasn't watching a baseball game at Clarke Field, nor was I sneaking in a round at the golf course. I was playing croquet.

Yes, croquet.

Go ahead, laugh all you want. A week before, when I first heard that a few of my friends had founded the Princeton Lawn Sports Society, I certainly did. After spending a magnificent afternoon with those gentlemen and gentlewomen, though, I'm singing a new tune.

Nancy Malkiel would have us believe that the thesis is "quintessentially Princeton," but if you ask me, nothing says Old Nassau like spending a lazy spring afternoon amidst mallets and wickets on Cannon Green.

Let me explain.

Princeton students are intellectuals. Croquet is a thinking man's game, in which prudent strategy is critical. The choice between sending an opponent's ball and advancing your own can be enormously difficult, requiring the same complex analysis and scrutiny normally reserved for organic chemistry problems served up by Maitland Jones.

Princeton students are hard-workers and high-achievers, yet, by and large, we're far friendlier than our brethren up in Cambridge and New Haven. And so it was that even as we each approached the game with one thing in mind — winning — we didn't forget our manners. Each time one of us hit an impressive shot, he or she was rewarded with hearty calls of "good show" and "well played." And when each of us hit the final stick of the game, we were rewarded with a round of applause, whether we had finished in first place or fifth. Our mothers would have been very proud.

Princeton students never give up. Even when junior Brian Jaffee jumped out to a seemingly insurmountable lead early in the game, none of us conceded defeat. Senior Charlie Greene mounted a stirring rally, stealing victory from the jaws of defeat with a stunning run of perfectly placed shots.

Princeton students are diverse. Croquet was long a game of old, rich, white men, but those days are no more. Our motley crew of eight included an Asian, two women and three Jews. Presumably to the disappointment of President Tilghman — who had walked past the game a week earlier and commented, "Quite an athletic activity, isn't it?" — none of us had green hair. I assure you, though, even Kermit the Frog would have felt comfortable amongst us.

Princeton students are well dressed. When Andre Agassi said "image isn't everything," he most certainly wasn't thinking of croquet. Between the starched seersuckers, the ubiquitous pastels, the men shamelessly wearing pink sweaters and the blue pinstripe pants that Charlie apparently stole from the Chicago Cubs, we made snobby people everywhere proud.

And finally, all-too-often, Princeton students are pompous and absurd. Yeah, I know we looked ridiculous, but there are worse things to be in the world. For better or worse, we're all spending four years at Princeton. Might as well fit in a round of croquet.