Shot after shot, nothing. Play after play, and no cigar. After 20 tries, freshman Nick Blatner scored his first basket, and his team erupted in celebration.
This is the Sewer: an aptly-named intramural men’s basketball team with a singular mission of losing every game it plays. Each basketball season, the players crawl out of Simpson Residence with a renewed vigor for fun in failure.
“The goal is to lose, which this team does quite well,” senior Justin Petersen said. “It’s a lot of fun because most of the guys haven’t played organized basketball. We don’t take ourselves too seriously.”
The team is composed of both upperclassmen and underclassmen residents. During a game, they look for opportunities to display their lack of skill — even going so far as to achieve a rare dishonor.
“We were once disqualified from a game due to the amount of half-court shots we were taking,” said senior Nathan Bly, a member of the team since his freshman year.
Former Sewer player and Hillsdale College admissions counselor Ben Strickland ’16 put it simply.
“We chose to be ridiculous,” he said.
With disqualification, many intentional losses, and a general inability to play basketball well, the Sewer has been largely successful at achieving its goal. According to Bly, the team only achieved one unfortunate victory in the last three years.
“It was over the Galloway Athletic Youth Squad, and one of the kids was so mad he yelled and chucked his backpack against the wall,” Bly said.
The team remains a mainstay in Simpson. Season after season, Sewer continues to come back together to play, always doing the best to be the worst.
“We may not score double digits ever, but nobody will cheer louder than we do,” sophomore Nathan Stanish said.
The team originally formed due to a former student’s contradictory skills. The student couldn’t play the game of basketball, but he could dunk remarkably well.
“Like many Simpson traditions, the Sewer predated me, and it brings me joy that it has lived long after I’ve gone,” Strickland said. “I am just blessed to have been able to participate in it for my four years.”
Likewise, senior Luke Turnbow believes this team is worth keeping around as an integral piece of Simpson lore.
“This is already a tradition worth carrying on,” Turnbow said. “No man now on the team was on the first team of the Sewer, but we have taken up the mantle of some of the worst basketball players to ever try our hands at the game.”
Each year, the players seek to build up the strong foundation of community.
“Sewer allowed me to be a part of something bigger and older than myself and get to know some pretty legendary upperclassmen from all parts of campus,” Strickland said. “As I became an upperclassman, I was able to bring in those who were willing and able into the tradition.”
The Sewer is representative of both Simpson and the college as a whole, Strickland said.
“The Sewer itself wasn’t anything special, but it was a manifestation or offshoot of the great culture that Simpson already had,” Strickland said. “This was largely due to the men that were there, putting it under the stereotypical and true Hillsdale sentiment: ‘It’s the people.’”
