Gamble Hall

As an accounting major in college, I spent roughly 60% of my waking hours from ages 18-22 in the magical building on campus known as Gamble Hall. Spring semester of freshman year was when it became apparent that Weisser and I (and various others) would be spending a lot of time there; everything began innocently enough when, instead of going straight from one class to the next, we used our 10 minutes in-between to hang out in the halls, a.k.a. "Gamble Hallin' it up." Obviously it escalated from there. If someone were to write a biography on me, it would probably be called "Well, it started out as a joke, and then...."

Anyways, I recently received a request from Noles (one of the other forefathers) to find the Gamble Hall rules, which were scribbled on the back of my notebook for our ISYS 217 class. Lo and behold, I dug around and found the notebook, which turned out to have a TON of stupid Gamble Hall-related crap in it, as well as a ton of stupid Information Systems-related crap. Remember that these rules were written while people-watching, so if something on here seems stupid or irrelevant, remember it actually happened, hence the rule against it.

1. No loud shoes (noise ordianance)

2. No sunglasses in the building. It's not that bright in here.

3. Rollerblades cannot be worn on your hands. Actually, just leave your rollerblades at home. We're not 13 anymore.

4. No falling down the stairs. No falling up the stairs either.

5. Pencils are for writing, not for holding your hair together.

6. Girls cannot wear football jerseys, especially Daunte Culpepper. Girls also cannot wear 1970's Converse sneakers. Unless you happen to be Julius Erving's daughter.

7. No holding hands. We're here to learn, kids.

8. No flirting with dudes if you're married. Not fair.

9. You can't sit on the Gamble Hall softball team bench if you're not on the Gamble Hall softball team (much more on this later.)

10. No sitting on the floor. If there's no spots on the bench, you stand. You don't see ballplayers sitting on the floor in the dugout. There's sunflower seeds and chew spit everywhere.

11. No going to class more than 30 seconds early, unless you have a test. That time must be used for "Gamble Hallin' It Up."

12. No headphones inside the building. You can listen to Green Day after class, bro.

13. No smoking on the East patio.

14. Leave your skateboard at the door. Dork.

15. No talking on cell phones inside the building.

16. No eating smelly-ass leftover casserole in class. Especially when you had to suck up to the prof so he would let you use the microwave in the teachers' lounge to heat that shit up. We've had Doritos and Mountain Dew for breakfast every day this semester, and we're still OK.

So there's more to the softball thing. Much more. It started when we realized that the main floor area, with the hallways leading down to rooms 1, 3, 5, 7, and the circular bench thing in the middle, was shaped just like a baseball field. This led to us referring to the bench we sat in when we were 'Gamble Hallin' it up' as the softball team bench...which led to us joking about actually having a Gamble Hall softball team...which led to us joking that we really had one the previous year...which led to us eventually telling rockhead girls that there was a whole University-wide softball team league, and that last year we went 122-0 in the regular season and defeated Abbott Hall in the Championship game...which led to the girls asking us when practice was...which led to us telling them "Tonight...be at this spot with your gloves at 8 o'clock tonight"....which led to the girls coming up to us the next day asking "Where were you guys last night? Was practice cancelled?"...which led to us dying laughing and realizing that 19 year old girls are fannnnn-tastic.

Pretty soon we had random dudes coming up to us and asking how they could get on the team, so we made up a rule that you had to have at least 2 classes in Gamble, and you had to bump into either me or Weisser at least once on Monday-Wednesday-Friday, and once Tuesday-Thursday, every week. For a made-up softball team! I still remember St. Aubyn coming home with his schedule one semester saying "Yes!!! Three classes in Gamble! I'm softball-team eligible this year!" This is a textbook example of Weisser and I making up dumb shit and just running with it.

I also found this beauty while going through another notebook. I am assuming I made this because either a) some girls needed a little more convincing before they bought into the softball league, or, most likely b) microeconomics was REALLY boring that day. This is beyond ridiculous:

Eastern Division

1. Witmer

2. Abbott

3. Starcher

4. Leonard

5. O'Kelly

6. Gillette

7. Education

8. Upson

Western Division
1. Gamble
2. Merrifield
3. Hughes
4. Odegaard
5. Clifford
6. Montgomery
7. Streibel
8. Corwin-Larrimore

2001 playoffs (best of 37)



Gamble defeats Merrifield, 19-0
Abbott defeats Witmer, 19-17



Finals (best of 23)

Gamble defeats Abbott, 12-0

Oh, Gamble Hall...I didn't realize until just now how much I miss you. I promise I won't forget again.