Bladderball to make a comeback, students speculate

We all know that Jonathan Edwards College uses self-deprecating humor to conceal its insecurities (and its fortune). In fact, little explanation is necessary to explain why JE sucks, but the true story actually lies within the history of Bladderball.

Quite evident in the name is the fact that the original, rugby-ish game was played in the 1880s with a ball made of an animal’s bladder. Besides that one fact, the more recent Bladderball has little to do with its nineteenth century predecessor.

One fine day in 1954, a Yale student, Phillip Ziedman, DC ’55, got the idea to roll out his six-foot-tall, leather exercise ball and kick it around with his mates before the big Yale v. Dartmouth football game. The trend started to catch on, and soon a tradition started that at 11 am on the Saturday before the Yale v. Dartmouth game, the huge ball would roll through Phelps Gate and onto Old Campus.

It would not be odd to wonder at this point, “Since it was a game, how did people play?” There were no formal rules for Bladderball, or if there were, they were never followed. The objective was to gain possession of the ball by whatever means possible. The residential colleges and other school organizations would fight for possession and then try to bring the Bladderball back to wherever their respective “base” was. In later years, the ball was rolled out of Old Campus, over the High Street Gate, and down Hillhouse Avenue, where it was laid at the President’s house until the following year.

It is from Bladderball that we get the phrase “JE Sux.” In 1975, one JE student had the bright idea to grab the ball with a meat hook. This could either have been a stupid mistake, or it could have been an ingenious attempt to thwart other teams. In any case, the ball popped, as inflatable things tend to do when stabbed with pointy metal objects. Seeing that they no longer had a ball to play with, and seizing the opportunity to brand a residential college for eternity, the crowd started yelling: “JE Sucks. JE Sucks.” The student body never quite forgot the day when JE sucked, and after a string of intramural victories, JE adopted the phrase as its namesake, changing the spelling to read “JE Sux.” Currently it is seen as a rallying cry, as opposed to a slap in the face.

The actual playing of Bladderball was as important as the rules. The logistics of the entire student body wrestling for control of a single ball were just not feasible. The Bladderball event was like a tailgate party. There was a lot of drinking and partying, and a large release of stress, as this occurred right after midterms. There were hordes of enthusiastic and highly polarized fans that were equally concerned with winning as with making sure everyone else lost. No matter what the result, every team would claim victory and try to validate the victory with an entirely made-up score, like 1,283 to 0.

The most notable “victory” occurred in 1977, when Pierson College chartered a helicopter to fly over the campus and drop pamphlets reading “Surrender. Pierson has won.” They trapped the Branford and Saybrook teams by locking the gates. Pierson proceeded to roll the Bladderball out of Old Campus and over the High Street Gate, videotaping it all the while so that a local news station could broadcast their triumph at Bladderball.

There were many other acts of vandalism that were associated with Bladderball. In the 1980s, Branford students supposedly poured butyric acid over the Saybrook Dining Hall, which corroded and smelled horrible. As for bodily harm, one year the ball actually rolled over a car and its driver.

Because of the dangers involved with letting drunken college students pilot a huge ball down the streets of New Haven, Yale Security had to shut the event down on certain occasions. A. Bartlett Giamatti, then the president of Yale, put an end to Bladderball in 1982, citing as his reasons the numerous acts of vandalism, property damage, and injuries resulting from the game.

The actual ball used in Bladderball still exists. It made an appearance in 1999 for a Halloween Party, and again in 2006, used by the Yale Precision Marching Band (YPMB) at a Princeton halftime show. The YPMB is rumored to still be in possession of the ball.

Bladderball encouraged the student body to identify not with Yale per se, but above all with their respective residential colleges. The rowdy, playful, partying atmosphere that characterized Bladderball was what gave Yale a tradition of academic rigor, in concurrence with raucous indulgence.

Until Bladderball is brought back, however, we will have to honor it by shouting, “JE Sucks,” rather than, “JE Sux.”

By Matthew Dernbach

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