I witnessed an amazing athletic feat Sunday afternoon.

One strong, accurate right arm reared back and launched a projectile over the playing field. The ball soared majestically through the air cutting through the wind like a hot knife through butter. Nerves of spectators tensed up, and there was a respective holding of breath as the ball came closer to its target.

Score!

The ball landed in the target, the crowd erupted, high-fives were exchanged. There was chest pounding, yelling, taunting and maybe a little beer-induced celebratory dance – or maybe it was a stumble.

All the meanwhile, somewhere inside someone was watching the Super Bowl.

Sure, I watched parts of the big game, but the most awe-inspiring performance on Sunday was played over a Ping-Pong table. That’s right my pigskin-toting fanatics, I’m talking about beer-pong.

They called it the “Super Pong,” or maybe it was the “Beer Bowl.” In all likelihood, it was something completely different than what I remember. My memory is a bit hazy – it was Super Bowl Sunday for fuck’s sake.

So, sporting a Bud Light, I had to check out my oceanside balcony to see what all the commotion was about. What I saw made me rethink my life’s purpose. The width of the table was where the pyramid began. I asked an onlooker how many cups they – eight total players, four on each side – were playing with, and I learned they had 137 cups.

Talk about a humbling realization.

“Wait, no, it’s 137 cups on each side,” he said.

Shit, if that’s not something to drink to, I don’t know what is. Watching the intense game boil down to a last shot from one team of wobblers sink the dreams – and any hopes of staying conscious before the sun went down – of their opponents, who were equally as stumbly, I sat… jealous, sober and wishing that I could partake in this epic battle. After the losing squad missed all of their rebuttals, they polished off the last 10 cups and earned the indefinite respect of this neighbor.

These days with the sun out for longer, the shirts are coming off and so are the tops of massive amounts of 30-packs for beer-pong. Beer-pong may, in fact, be the greatest beer-related creation since the birth of Pabst – because if you’re like me, no matter how much you suck, you’re always a winner.

I am an avid Lakers hater. Back in the day, I used to always bash Shaq for his free throw-shooting shortcomings. But now I can sympathize with the big Aristotle. Throwing a tennis ball into a basketball hoop is about the same as throwing a Ping-Pong ball into a plastic brew-filled cup – something I’m not too good at.

My roommates reinforced my self-criticism of beer-pong skills.

“Sean, you fucking suck,” one of my roommates affirmed during our last beer-drinking endeavor.

Or do I?

This is one game I actually love to lose. Some people like to win out of competitiveness, bragging rights or so they can avoid becoming inebriated.

Me? I don’t give a fuck.

I swear, it’s really part of my elaborate, selfish conspiracy to rob people of their beers. It’s by far the most effective means of soaking up some sun and getting more bang for your buck by taking your roommates’ brewskies. It’s simple: Just throw the game.

So go grab a couple of 30-packs and set up those beer-pong tables for a sloppy old time.

As for my beer-pong deficiencies, perhaps one of these days I will try to earn a bit for respectability at the table. For now, I’ll just apologize for waking up my roommates or any of the neighbors if they hear that incessant Ping-Pong ball hitting the table while I practice my beer-pong stroke till the wee hours of the morning.

Or maybe I’ll just get plastered enough to think that my shots are going in the cup, when, in all reality, I’m just incapacitated on my living floor flicking peanuts at my roommates.

Yeah, I’ll do that instead.

Daily Nexus assistant opinion editor Sean Swaby is still trying to work out the logistics of Jack Daniels pong.

Print