Hundreds of students flocked to New York City last March to see our Hoyas defeat Pitt and capture the 2007 Big East championship. I, too, headed to NYC, only I was not so excited. I was taking the notoriously inexpensive and shabby Chinatown bus back home to spend spring break with my colorful, Dominican family.
Good news arrived at the last minute when my best friend announced that she was coming to New York for Spring Break as well. She was an intern in the Athletic Department, and had to work Georgetown’s games at the Big East tournament. She was more or less responsible for the players’ complimentary tickets, generally given to a player’s friends or family. The job was full of perks: she was granted full access to the Verizon Center and the athletic facilities.
This was no exception during the Big East tournament. My friend didn’t have to work the Championship game and managed to obtain two floor seats. The significance of this game was lost on me. I made other plans. Instead of opting to watch ten tall, athletic men compete in a basketball game, we decided to watch 15 tall, athletic men strip, dance and gyrate like helicopter propellers. I picked my friend up from work and we stumbled out of Madison Square Garden and downtown to Club Avalon, home of the USA Hunk-o-Mania Show. (God bless America.)
As we walked into the club, we were overwhelmed. The dark, neon-lit venue was filled to capacity with young women celebrating their last nights of freedom and their secretly jealous friends. We sat down close to the stage. All that we could hear were frantic screams and cheers. Then, as if from thin air, well-toned, oiled men appeared and charged towards us. I turned toward my best friend, whose jaw was grazing the floor and said, “Holy shit … what have we gotten ourselves into?”
The experience at the club, I’m sure much like the one at the game, can only be described as unreal. As we sat there overwhelmed by the women around us screaming and jumping in praise of the oiled gods, we couldn’t help but laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation. Unlike male strip clubs where women dance on stage, the “hunk-o-mania” show is an interactive experience. The men, although not fully nude, paraded around in scanty g-strings while pulling women onto the stage, into the “hot seat.” The men pulled the women up on stage and did things to them I’d only heard about. Women around us were laughing and pointing, sometimes to note moves to remember.
The whole dreamlike charade came to an end when my dad excitedly phoned to talk about the game and the big win. It didn’t even cross my mind to check the score. Georgetown had won the championship, and we missed it. We hadn’t even bothered to sell our floor seat tickets.
I’m still not much of a basketball fan, but it’s fun to see my friends get all worked up over it. I am one of the few Georgetown students that would pass up free tickets to a championship game. I’m getting better, though—I now know what “March Madness” is, and can name a few of the starters on the team. But I haven’t bought my season tickets yet, because who knows when Hunk-o-Mania will come to town?
