ROCK PAPER SCISSORS
Graham Walker and his brother, Douglas, were camping one weekend in 1995 and when neither wanted to leave the cottage to get firewood, they solved the stalemate with a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Graham won. When Douglas came back to the cottage, they got hooked on RPS---they noticed there was a little more to it than hand-gestures. Now, they run the World Rock Paper Scissors Society in Toronto. Tomorrow, they will host 500 players competing for the World Rock Paper Scissors Championship.
“It’s probably the best excuse to go on a road trip,” said Graham Walker, 39. “You can walk in the door, and leave a champion.”
In a time of international conflict, I am not suggesting that this childhood game could bring together the Sunni and the Shia. However, it might help end an argument with the wife about whether you can purchase the 60 inch plasma, thus preserving your marriage. If nothing else, people are getting off their cushion and into the game. You can’t hit an 80 mile an hour curveball, but you CAN throw a rock, paper, or scissor. That’s all you need to know, to experience the championship stage. People come from around the world to experience the thrill of the lights and cameras, knowing that it could be all over in just four throws of the fist.
“The strategy is to play randomly…but humans are incapable of being random. Humans always fall into patterns,” Walker said.
While champions attract beautiful groupies, I am not sure “Rock Paper Scissors Champ” is going to keep your winning streak alive with the ladies at the bars in Lincoln Park. But at the RPS event in Toronto, even the losers stand a chance---how could their be any pretentiousness?
“It’s cool, crazy, weird and fun” Graham said. “You have 750 like-minded people out to have a good time. Everyone has three things in common: rock, paper and scissors.”
The lack of time, skill, and endurance are leading more people to join leagues for organized kickball, Electric Football, and even Shin-kicking tournaments. Face it---you’d look pretty dumb playing touch football with a bunch of 12 year olds.
Besides, People are growing tired of artificially-enhanced athletes, with their self-absorbed theatrics. Don’t see a sport you like to watch or play? Invent your own! In the summer of '79 my friends and I played Frisbee golf through city streets, trying to hit telephone poles while avoiding the “bunkers”---windows and El Caminos. Maybe someday, professional sports executives will learn a lesson, and we can stop paying $300 to bring a family to the ballgame.
“We’re more participatory in this country now and people have the opportunity to do something; run a marathon, splash someone with a paintball; that’s more satisfying than sitting in the stands," said NWU Prof. Irving Rein, author of The Elusive Fan: Reinventing Sports in a Crowded Marketplace. "I don’t think that football and basketball are being barraged by these extreme sports, but what you’re seeing is the numbers going up. The question here is—something’s got to give, eventually.”
But even a child’s game can become vulnerable to the pressures of big league sports. There is now another RPS league in the U.S. which has added beer girls, big prizes and racy videos, to compete with the "high-brow" World RPS in Toronto. The two organizations don’t seem to like each other much….but put the lawyers on hold and settle it like a champ---let the fists fly.