Cool Hand
Mike eats
way to win
By ARTBUSHNELL
Of the Emerald
Mike McKinley is no Cool Hand
,uke.
But the freshman baseball
player proved he’s half-way to
matching Luke’s “50 eggs in a
hour” Tuesday night.
The right-handed pitcher
downed 25 eggs in an hour to
soundly defeat Terry Green in the
University’s first egg-eating
^intramural contest.
From the start, the contest was
eminiscent of Luke’s race
igainst the clock. Many of the
ules were similar (no throwing
up or your man is automatically
disqualified), there was money at
stake (though not nearly as much
was bet as changed hands in the
movie) and a rather large crowd
stood by to cheer on the efforts of
the contestants — and their
stomachs.
In the end it was McKinley’s
itomach that emerged the victor
over both Green and the 25
iafeway double AA extra large
ird-boiled eggs.
But at the outset of the contest,
things didn’t look too good for Mel
Krause’s varsity pitcher. His
opponent entered the “Caswell
Coliseum” early, wearing a pink
flowered track suit and jumping
rope. The small, wiry Green —
who usually weighs in at 128
pounds — reversed the rope in
mid-air as he jumped and looked
as if his determination would
more than make up for his lack of
size — and stomach.
When McKinley entered the
lounge, which was packed nearly
as full as the Pit, the “Champ”
sign on his back looked like so
much talk. Even his varsity
green sweat suit with his name on
the back didn’t match his op
ponent’s attire.
After the first minute of eating,
McKinley and Green were tied 2
to 2 — on a pace of 120 eggs in the
allotted hour.
But after that, things slowed
down considerably.
McKinley took an early one-egg
lead, but after a loud belch Green
reached the dozen mark first.
Green continued to belch
throughout th? competition and
constantly joked with the
audience. “You could get sick
doing this,” he prophetically said
after catching McKinley.
At the first dozen mark —
reached in fifteen minutes, a 48
egg-an-hour pace — things still
looked bad for McKinley. Green
got up and jumped rope some
more — and McKinley’s egg
counter had miscounted one egg
putting him down two.
And Mike was about finished.
He looked at his trainer and said,
The thrill of victory . . .
the eggony of defeat
Photos by Phil Waldstein
“I don’t know if I’m full, but I
sure feel sick.” It looked as if the
only real contest was between
Green and the clock.
At 14 eggs, McKinley had
caught up and Green — still
belching quite frequently — left
to go to the bathroom at the half
way point. Rumors that he’d
thrown up circled through the
room, but the judge ruled Green
had been unable to vomit and the
competition went on.
Now McKinley’s humor had
returned, he didn’t look nearly as
green and he started kidding with
the audience. It was apparent the
tide had turned — and so had
Green’s stomach.
With the next belch, Green
violated the main rule and the
cheering crowd cleared a path for
his hasty retreat to the bathroom.
McKinley then battled the
clock down to the last second as
he finished off seven eggs in the
last 15 minutes.
On egg number 22, the counter
again erred — this time in Mike’s
favor — so the score became
accurate. But with only a minute
and a half left, McKinley still had
more than one egg left. As he
sprinted to the finish, his stomach
almost gave out on him twice.
And with the judge counting
down the last ten seconds, he still
had the white of an entire egg in
his mouth. But as the judge
reached zero, McKinley opened
his mouth dramatically and —
just like Luke — revealed no egg.
Afterwards, McKinley said he
felt “heavy” as he stood around
autographing egg cartons and
holding his 15 dollar prize.
But his ordeal may not be over
— and Luke’s record might not be
entirely safe.
Caswell resident assistant Don
New announced that every
Monday night next term would
see more of this eggs-traordinary
competition in his dorm.
German
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