Call for memories: 43-Man Squamish

Do you remember the game 43-Man Squamish? Or, recognize the photo above from MAD magazine? Perhaps you've even picked up a "Fruillip" and played yourself? If so, Skidmore professor Jeffrey Segrave is interested in your story. 

43-Man Squamish

The game-slash-spoof, 43-Man Squamish, took off in the late 1960s as an opportunity for whimsical silliness and self-conscious lunacy during an era fraught with sociopolitical turmoil and cultural angst.

The brainchild of writer Tom Koch and illustrator George Woodbridge, it first appeared in MAD magazine—pages 21–23, issue #95, June of 1965. 

Although no one at MAD expected anyone to take the game for anything other than a screwy takeoff on sports, the reaction was something quite different and the game took on a cultural life that has survived well into the 21st century.

Launched as a scathing sendup of the commercialization and elitism of college sport, the game is mind-bogglingly convoluted and indecipherable.

Exactly what any players are supposed to do and how they are supposed to do it, exactly what penalties apply and who is supposed to apply them, even what the rules are in the first place all remain totally unclear.

Which is the whole point, of course. This is what the game looks like, in brief:  

There are 43 players on each side; positions include Grouches, Brooders, Wicket Men, Niblings, Frummerts, Overblats, Underblats, Back-Up Finks, Leapers and a Dummy. The game is played on a pentagonal field, or Flutney. Players can carry, kick or throw a spheroid Pritz, made from ibex hide and stuffed with bluejay feathers. A game is made up of five Snivels, or downs, within which to score, generally by running across the goal line for a 17-point Woomick or by smacking the Pritz across the line with a Frullip, a stick shaped like a shepherd’s crook. Violations include Walling the Pritz, Frullipo-gouging, and icing on the fifth Snivel. The game begins with the Probate Judge flipping a coin, specifically a new Spanish peseta, while the visiting captain guesses the toss. If he guesses correctly, the game is immediately cancelled. If not, the home-team captain is given the choice of playing offense or defense first. Play begins after a Frullip is touched to the Flutney and the defending Outside Grouch signifies that he is ready to hurl the Pritz by shouting, "Mi tío es enfermo, pero la carretera es verde!”— a wise old Chilean saying that means "My uncle is sick but the highway is green!"

In short, the game is utterly unplayable.

Yet, students all across America and Canada have picked up their Frullips and challenged other teams.

There are records of students playing Squamish at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Marquette University, SUNY Stony Brook, the University of Calgary and the University of Alberta.

Several high schools supposedly fielded teams too, the most credible reports coming from students at Hinsdale Township High School, where players turned up one Saturday morning and competed on a polo field. Since no one had a Pritz, players used a two-foot-long green plastic alligator.

Since no one had Frullips either, players used an assortment of hockey sticks, lacrosse sticks, rakes and brooms. They made their own T-shirts and wore a variety of hockey helmets, lacrosse helmets, and construction hard-hats; one player used a World War II German army helmet.

If you have a squamish story, please contact Jeffrey Segrave.