The News for those few who play real croquet!                                July 24, 2005

The Lifeless Six on this year's tournament in front of ever fun beach grass. Photo by Life Winner Nathan Cole

Sand and wind play havoc on croquet players....except Nathan (sigh)

For the fifth straight year, the Ironman Croquet league went to the Oregon Coast to put on the annual We Have No Lives Classic. It was the seventh time for this celebrated tournament. This year seven players showed how little life they had by driving an hour to fight over the coveted box of Life cereal.

The event actually took place at a hilly portion of beach in the North Jetty in Florence, Oregon. This led to much sand flying in player's faces and the occasional wind to blow the ball off-course. The conditions played havoc on the difficult up hill end stick for most players not named Nathan Cole.

Steve Roberts jumped to an early lead but was passed on the third wicket by Nathan. The difficult sixth wicket on a slant on a tough sand hill slowed Nathan down allowing Ben and Mike to catch up. However, this was short lived as Nathan cruised thru the rest of the shots in little time. Nathan had won his fourth tournament of the year and proceeded to have fun destroying a large piece of driftwood with his famous duck tape mallet.

Mike Cough was not too far behind Nathan and seemed assured of second place. However, the wind played havoc on Mike. He shot over the high hill onto the other side. At this time, Brandon had finally catch up and hit an impressive fifteen foot shot up hill that stopped dead in front of the wicket. Brandon, the bridesmaid, had claimed his fifth runner-up finish of the year. Mike's fun did continue.

Mike proceeded to fly the ball over the hill again. He slowly made his way up the hill and fell inches short of hitting the end stick. As he did, Ben used his next turn to hit Mike's ball and then the stick for third place. Mike "celebrated" fourth place by launching his croquet ball that nearly hit Ben fifty feet away.

The two Steves had a similar battle as Steve Roberts hit Steve Unfred's ball and then the end stick to claim fifth. Unfred took sixth place and Alena took seventh. For the second straight year, Alena refused to enter the ocean as is customary for last place. Talk about having no life! Nathan now has three of them!

Jennifer Riedy and Keri Baker, non-related female IMC players

By Alena Woicicki, the Susan B. Anthony of Ironman Croquet

Despite the fact that the first time I observed the great sport of Ironman Croquet I was hit in the stomach with a croquet ball, I decided that instead of letting the pain get to me, I would join the league. Mike Cough is quoted to this day as saying that he didn�t mean to hit me, but I am positive that in actuality his plan was to convince me to not join the league. Up until this season, I was the only non-relative female to join the league, making me a real girl as opposed to a sister. A sister is someone who in their brother's mind are not even assured to be human. I was breaking the male code, I mean it isn�t called IronmAN Croquet for nothing.

So you ask what does it mean to be the token female in an all male league? Well, it is pretty much like any other situation a woman is forced to deal with. I am making my mark in this male dominated sport, and now, because of my subliminal training of the men in the league we have three female players. The sensitivity of the league has greatly increased, and what the boys don�t realize is that I have been working on all of them for the past three years.

If Jennifer and Keri had joined when I did, they would have ultimately fled for their lives. But I put up with the jokes and sexism just for them and any future women that are brought to the league. Maybe even one day Ironman Croquet will change to make the title of the sport more neutral to both sexes.