This was his Olympics. His dad, Chad, and his mother, Gabbi, ordered his Uber to practice every Saturday and Sunday at 4:00 AM from the time he was a boy of six. He was criticized by skeptical, world-wearied high school teachers. “You’ll never turn beer pong into anything that *counts*,” they sneered.

But Thad Hoppus-Griggs pushed through.

When he vomited because he couldn’t find his phone, so he couldn’t order pizza to lay a base, he rallied.

When his parents divorced because they both started fucking other beer pong parents (beerents) whose kids were on the circuit, he drank til he couldn’t feel.

When he had to eat the limp biscuit at beer pong camp, where he learned from Artie Politeri, beer pong king of Paramus, he bit the bullet and ate the damn biscuit. It was his punishment.

Thad trained from childhood for his moment in the sun. It was his raison d’être. He was meant to hurl ping pong balls into mildewy solo cups.

He was Thad motherfucking Hoppus-Griggs, and he *played* beer pong.