MIDWEST

EAST  MIDWEST  WEST  SOUTH

23. Find your inner rudy. Touch the PLAY LIKE A CHAMPION sign at Notre Dame Stadium, then strap on a helmet for full-contact interhall tackle football (above). Irish coaches have been known to unearth a walk-on or two at these IM games.

University of Notre Dame Keenan Hall player hugs the team's trophy after winning the 2004 intramural tackle football championship football game Joe Raymond

24. Browse for a date at Wisconsin's Helen C. White Library, the most swingin' stacks in all of college. (Start by looking under D, for "desperate.")

25. Better yet, skip the foreplay and visit the University of Chicago's Regenstein Library, where you might just catch runners jogging by in nothing but their Nikes the Sunday before finals week.

26. Channel your inner leprechaun on Green Beer Day at Miami (Ohio), when students chug dyed beers and slurp toxic-looking Jell-O concoctions at 5:30 a.m., then slink off to class.

27. You snooze, you lose. Put the competition to rest by pushing a bed in Ball State's bed races.

28. Slow-pitch at Carleton's marathon softball game. The tradition started in 1964, and Knights students have tacked on an extra inning annually to what began as a 100-inning spectacle. (Do the math -- that's long.)

29. Sip a red beer -- tomato juice and suds -- at Barry's Bar before a Nebraska game.

30. Sink or swim in a cardboard boat regatta. Where, you ask? Notre Dame, Central Michigan and Southern Illinois all hold one.

31. Close those Cliffs Notes and read a real book
• Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer by Warren St. John Spend a season traveling with 'Bama's zealous RV nation -- without all the mustard stains.
• The Amateurs by David Halberstam An insightful look at collegiate and Olympic rowing through the experiences of oarsmen striving to make the 1984 U.S. team.
• Shake Down the Thunder by Murray Sperber A retired professor at Indiana clarifies what's reality and what's myth in his chronicle of Notre Dame football.
• A Season on the Brink by John Feinstein Coach Knight as he really was, not Brian Dennehy's portrayal of the man.

32. Throw out the first pitch at Wrigley Field. Easy to say if you're a Chi-town celeb like Bill Murray. But what about a tuition-paying Northwestern student, for whom Rushmore is a Greek strategy and not a payday? Submitting a 50-word essay ("Why I should represent NU on the mound") might get you to the Wrigley hill. Last year Bo Schultz ('08, above) was one of 10 essay finalists. He then beat out the others in a talent show (he did the Napoleon Dynamite dance), trivia contest (he knew Alex Gonzalez was given an error after the Bartman incident) and Q&A. On NU Day at Wrigley, in front of a packed house that included 1,500 Northwestern students, Schultz finally delivered. "I threw it as hard as I could," he says. "[Cubs pitcher Michael Wuertz] sidestepped it and the ball went to the backstop. He looked at me like, What an a------."

33. Watch Senior Tackle at Ohio State, in which seniors on the football team nail blocking sleds -- in front of 25,000 -- before their season- and career-ending game against Michigan.

34. Stay up late at Indiana and join in the Spirit of Sport, a nocturnal sports smorgasbord that doubles as a fund-raiser for the Special Olympics. The games include Texas hold 'em, Twister, Oreo-stacking and a Fear Factor knockoff in which contestants are doused in a ketchup-mustard-relish-chili concoction.

35. Hobnob with six-time Olympic gold medal winner Michael Phelps at a Michigan swim practice, where he's an assistant coach.

36. Sample the Sweet Meat Stix (steak kabobs better known as "the best 12 inches in the Midwest") with Washington University students during St. Louis's Mardi Gras celebration.

40. Streak the field on Parents' Day.

41. Take on your school's QB in NCAA '06 football and whup his virtual butt.

EAST  MIDWEST  WEST  SOUTH