LAS VEGAS — Two recent graduates of Southern Illinois University won $50,000 after being crowned champions at the seventh annual World Series of Beer Pong in Las Vegas Wednesday night.
Matthew “White Boy” White, 24, and Ross “The Boss” Hampton, 23 — who together make up the “Seek N Destroy” team — saw off Georgia’s “Boozin Gear” in the final. Their reward was a cash prize and a set of diamond-studded dog tags.
Organizers said the wacky event at the Flamingo Casino Hotel drew 450 teams from 48 US states and 14 countries in front of a crowd of more than a thousand spectators.
Hampton was the star of the tournament — he also won the single’s title — with the crowd regularly chanting “MVP! MVP!” because of his accuracy throughout the competition. It was he who sunk the final cup to give his team the win.
After the victory, his partner White, a fellow native of Edwardsville, Ill., marveled that “all that beer pong play finally amounted to something,” adding that he was “going to live the best life in the world.”
Beer pong, perhaps the most famous college drinking game, is played on a ping pong-like table with two teams standing at opposite ends. The two teams take turns attempting to throw a ping pong ball into 10 cups of beer arranged in bowling-pin formation on the opponent’s side of the table.
When a direct hit is scored, the opponent must down the contents of the cup. The game ends when all the cups are eliminated from one side of the table.
However, during the World Series of Beer Pong, the players could choose to drink water instead.