Yup, we talking juggling today, folks. According to this pdf, which has a list of club sports at Penn State, Juggling, yes you got that right, is considered a club sport. Let me reiterate: the “activity” that clowns and your weird uncle who wants to “impress” you do, is considered a sport here at THE Penn State. I mean it can’t get much better than this, having sport competitions with juggling. Although I’m not entirely sure how the club sport works here as I really couldn’t find much information about it other than that it exists on that list, but I can imagine that it’s beautiful. This may be the peak of humanity’s competitive entertainment achievements. You heard it here first, folks.
So juggling, as you all should already know, is simply continuously throwing multiple objects (usually balls) into the air in a pattern without dropping any. For one that can barely even juggle one ball, it actually is pretty impressive to me to see someone who can juggle well. Watching some whackjob juggle like 8 balls at a time or mixing it up with like bottles on fire or swords is half-wittedly cool. Although it is pretty stupidly dangerous when you raise the stakes and can get dull dumb fast, skilled juggling is still really impressive in my book, and honestly anything that I can’t do that others can (which is a LOT of stuff), is impressive to me.
When I was 14 I went on a trip to Boston with my family. We were walking near the Boston Commons when a crowd started to form around a man who was juggling. I went in and pushed my way to the front to watch in awe this middle-aged deadbeat juggle for petty cash. He started out with balls, continuously adding one in until he got to like 8 balls or something. He then switched to bottles with a wick at top and lit them on fire. To the crowds terror, only after a minute or so he slipped up and missed a bottle. Although you can imagine some huge fire ball explosion occurring as it was basically a Molotov cocktail, to my disappointment, everyone just got splashed with some liquid (which was probably just water given no explosion) and some glass and sadly no one got burnt to a crisp. After the first bottle, he then got rattled and dropped two more (he was juggling four). Most of the crowd just ran off as I just walked off with wet shoes and disappointment. I mean, I felt pretty bad for the dude as he got zero money and probably had to take a break after that mess, but I also just wanted to see a fireball.
So, here’s the thing. Penn State does have a Juggling Club Sport and I found a link for it, but it has absolutely zero information on it. The problem with reviewing such obscure and probably unpopular sports here at Penn State is that they aren’t well kept and hard to find. So as is, if you want to join this “sports” club then you are on your own again. All I know is that it somehow exists so go out there and confirm that, if you actually want to for some reason.
Penn State has so many random sports that are played on different levels like DI, club, and IM. I’m trying to think about how juggling would be played competitively? Would it be based on how many objects one could juggle? Would it be based on speed? To me, a sport requires some sort of competition, so I don’t quite understand how juggling could be consider a sport. It seems more of an activity.
I would never think of juggling being an actual sport. Seems kinda silly to me! I can’t juggle either, I’ve tried teaching myself and I’ve gotten close but I need more practice. It’s really impressive to me, too! I can’t believe people can do it with all types of objects, and many of them, too! Great post!
I really wouldn’t have expected this to be a club. As always, the interjection of anecdotes and humor made this an enjoyable read. It would have been interesting to hear more about how this activity functions as a sport rather than just a parlor trick, however, there was a lack of information provided on Penn State’s part, so it’s whatever. I’m assuming they gauge success by means of height and number of juggled objects, but that’s just a guess. It could have also been neat to see a video of competitive juggling. Overall, a very entertaining post.
Juggling seems like more of a hobby than a sport to me but I agree that it is really cool to see someone juggling 8 balls, bowling pins, or something else rediculous. One question that I have is how is it possible that there are enough people who can juggle really well at Penn State to form a club. I can personally juggle 3 balls but anything else is out of the picture. That being said, I have never met someone who can juggle really well so I wonder how that team was formed.
The poor juggler was trying his best. Everybody has to make a living somehow even if its a little crazy. The one part of doing such things to gain money though is that you actually need to be good at it. Maybe it was his first day on the job and he was nervous so I’d give him the benefit of the doubt, maybe not the benefit of my wallet though. Also, it sounds as if you really dodged a bullet by not being lit on fire. Really poor choice to go with flaming objects in a large public crowd. I really don’t think a profession of juggling would pay enough to cover those legal fees and medical bills. And would juggling really be worth jail time?
The humor in your posts really draws upon the question as to whether or not the sports you comment on are truly sports, which is a talent on your part. Also, your example of the juggler is an accurate representation, and serves as a source of imagery, for readers because, as I did, I’m sure we can all imagine what that looked like. Overall I agree with you in that juggling is not really a sport but more a source of entertainment.