By Jacob Kalish

Bagel throwing at SUNY Oswego. Jim Feeney

SUNY Oswego: Bagel Throwing

Fans at SUNY Oswego eagerly await the hockey team's first goal against rival SUNY Plattsburgh, as the score brings a torrent of bagels onto the ice. The tradition started in the 1997-98 season, when Oswego shut out Plattsburgh (hence the bagel). Seven years later fans are still flinging bread. "Hundreds came flying this year," says Oswego sports information director Lyle Fulton. "Goalies hid in the net. The refs had to dodge them."

Franklin College: Burnin' Down the (Out)House

At small Franklin (IND.) College (enrollment: 1,048), students have burned down an outhouse before the homecoming football game for over a half century. No s---. The privy-burning started in 1908: Female students had strict curfews, so the men had to resort to trickery to get the women out of their dorm rooms to party. They stole a privy from someone's property and burned it outside Bryan Hall, the women's dorm. The girls ran out and off with the guys, and a tradition was born. The practice of outhouse-stealing ended in 1961, and these days, thanks to increased plumbing in rural Indiana, Franklin builds and burns a nonfunctional privy during a pep rally before the big game.

Yale: The Saybrook Strip

At the end of the third quarter of each football game, about 20 students from Yale's Saybrook College perform a striptease. The tradition, which started in the 1970s, begins with two minutes left in the quarter, when the cry of "Shoes!" goes up, and Saybrugians take off their footwear. At the end of the third the band strikes up some provocative number, and Saybrook's exhibitionists sing their song, which climaxes in, "Biff, bam, boc, bip/We are Saybrook, watch us strip!" During the Harvard-Yale game, it gets even better. The seniors take it all off. "This is what we're known for," says senior Annemarie Baltay. "If you love Saybrook, you'll strip for Saybrook."

Florida: Jock Jump

What's more impressive than pole vaulting? Pole vaulting in your athletic supporter. Florida's Jock Jump started in 1996, when a senior, Troy Rumfelt, said he'd once jumped naked. "We thought, We've got to do that," says Steve Mesler, then a freshman decathlete. "But maybe we shouldn't get arrested." Jock straps were deemed enough clothing for the vaulters to avoid trouble. Strings were pulled to get lights turned on at the stadium, and Mesler made up flyers and started a website. The first competition featured Lawrence Johnson, who earned a silver medal in the 2000 Olympics, and Mesler, who in 2002 made the Olympics in the bobsled. Tradition dictates that Jock Jump start with an announcer reading the jumpers' bios. At the post-party a "trophy" keg is bought in the name of the winner. The Jump went coed in 1999 (female competitors wear sports bras and underwear) and is going strong, albeit under constant fear of being shut down. "I have no idea how we never got in trouble," Mesler says. 

Kenyon: Shock Your Mama Party

The Kenyon men's swim team has won 26 straight Division III national titles while the women have won 20 of the last 22. To achieve such dominance the teams abstain from alcohol during the season. "But once we're done, it's a whole different story," says senior Will Wakefield. The team throws a costume party called Shock Your Mama, where the drinks are plentiful and the clothing is sparse. At one SYM, one female wore only pages of a Kenyon admissions book. Another showed up in Saran Wrap while a guy in a priest costume handed out condoms. One attendee was asked to leave last year when he insisted on wearing his boxers around his head rather than his waist.

Issue date: April 14, 2005