On the afternoon of Friday, April 20th, Nick Kahn became the champion of the Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery’s skeeball tournament which was hosted as a part of And the Winner Is…, an exhibition about competition, cooperation, and community. The tournament invited 1, 920 Haverford students, staff, and administration to participate. When it came down to the end, Kahn was the final participant left, beating his opponent with a score of 300 to 290.
Name: Nick Kahn
Year: 2014
Hometown: Atlanta, GA
Major: English & French
Winning score: Final 16: 360-340-280-300
How are you involved at Haverford?
I play on the men’s soccer team and I’m on the student board at the Rohr Center for Jewish Life.
What was your background in skee-ball prior to the tournament?
It was one of my many favorite games at Chuck-E-Cheese, where a kid can be a kid.
Did you practice for your matches? If so, how much?
I practiced a little… I work at the bookstore and my schedule works out so that I’m consistently getting to the campus center with 20 or 30 minutes to kill. So instead of reading, I would sometimes just go into the gallery and roll balls. It’s a great stress reliever.
Pre-match pump up song?
I have recently been listening to this hour-long track called, “Zen Garden” to calm my nerves. It’s very therapeutic and tranquilizing. Check it out. On YouTube
Any pre-match routines?
Yeah. I developed this weird habit of picking the very first ball up with my right hand, placing it in my left, and then tossing it in the air back to my right before my first roll. I couldn’t tell you why.
Will you continue your skee-ball prowess on the boardwalks this summer?
If I can find a place, I definitely will. I just got invited to this national skeeball league that has venues all over the country. If I can make it to any of those I’d love to try to roll with the pros.
Best part of being the champion of And the Winner Is….?
The friends I made and experiences I had in Greensboro. Also, being Matt Wetherell’s hero.
What did you get to do as the champion?
I spent a day in Greensboro, NC, being regaled with presents and congratulations. Highlights include: being greeted with a 20-foot banner with my name on it, gourmet pizzas for lunch, having a personal bagpipe concert in a park, seeing Elsewhere art gallery (google it, it’s awesome), personal tour of the UNC art museum, 30-minute deep tissue massage, spending time in Sl Brilliant’s Utopian bookstore, and hanging out all day with Lee Walton.
Skeeball or soccer?
Soccer for now; I think skeeball is one of those things that I’ll do to stay in shape when I finally have to hang up the cleats.