- Stephen Colbert (only his fictional persona)
- Michael Corleone (main character of The Godfather trilogy)
- Evan and Fogel (aka McLovin) of Superbad
- Dr.Seuss
- Timothy Geithner (US Secretary of the Treasury)
- The guys who invented Beer Pong
So, how did Beer Pong start?
In the 1950's frat guys at Dartmouth (or possibly Lehigh) took table tennis to the next logical level by combining beer drinking with the game that originated with upper-class Brits in the 1880's.
Prior to the invention of even early Beer Pong the popular table games with British roots were table tennis and shuffleboard. (As an aside, maybe you've seen a university themed shuffleboard table lately as it's making a comeback as a popular game at college bars.)
The original version of Beer Pong involved table tennis paddles; think about the evolution from cricket to baseball.
Cups of beer (Solo cups had been invented but the signature red cup didn't come around until the 1970's) were placed on the ping pong tables and players paddled back and forth (one-on-one) trying to hit ping pong balls into their opponents' cups.
Eventually someone decided to lose the paddles (rumor has it on that fateful night all the paddles had been broken) and the evolution has continued ever since.
Originally the two versions of the game were referred to as:
- Beer Pong (with paddles)
- Beirut (no paddles - tossing)
The actual word Beirut, with no correlation to the game itself, seems to have been randomly chosen as the game's name for no other reason than being an usual sounding (and spelled) word that came up often in the news around the time of the game's early development.
With no hard evidence to support our theory (here it comes) our best guess as to the thing Beirut and Beer Pong have in common ... getting bombed (Beirut pictured below). You heard it here first.
The term Beer Pong began replacing Beirut in some areas of the US in the 1980's as the "beer pong with paddles" game began to phase out.
Today the term Beer Pong has become more popular than Beirut (the antiquated term with the confusing origin) to the point that almost anyone who refers to Beer Pong is talking about the version without paddles.
You can now impress your friends with this newfound information.
If anyone doubts you send them to this site.
