A report from the Fourth Annual Beer Pong World Championship.

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You wouldn’t know it from the look of them, but these are people with day jobs. Over there’s an environmental attorney dressed as Terry Schiavo’s feeding tube. He’s talking with a venerable high school history teacher and coach, who’s wearing an elaborate Super Chicken suit, and Super Chicken’s wife, a real estate baroness outfitted as a cowgirl-stripper. The other Super Chicken, a financial CEO, is nearby talking to a dentist dressed like an NBA player.

But worldly commitments take a back seat to world championships.

Says Sinclitico, “In the two months prior to Beer Pong World Championship, I sat for the California bar exam and received my law degree. Ranking those in comparison to a championship…[the championship] ranks first, second, and third.”

Newly enrolled UC Davis Business School student Alex Morris attributes his rediscovered drive to Beer Pong.

“When I won last year,” he says. “I realized anything was possible.”

Thirty teams have traveled here for a chance to take home the trophy with the golden pong player and keg cup on top. Most of them met at UCLA, where informal beer pong games would pop up organically anytime a table and a beer stash crossed paths, but in four short years, the event has gathered devotees from Sacramento to San Diego. And it continues to evolve an existence all its own.

Costumes—“as essential to the championship as a soundtrack to a movie,” says Chuba—have grown more elaborate. The number of entrants has doubled. The commemorative videos have earned critical acclaim. Corporate sponsorship overtures grow louder, as does the crowd as the tournament moves into the finals.