Nineteen years is not long enough for a young man to mature. Add in a case of beer, a house full of college football players on the last day of two-a-day practices, and there’s bound to be trouble.

That situation describes one of my first college parties at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. If you get enough beer flowing around a group of freshman boys, the testosterone will be flowing as freely as the beer, leading to some poor decisions.
Football players like to hit things. Give them too much beer, and they like to hit things more. Two-a -day practices typically end the weekend before classes start, meaning not many students are on campus, especially the girls. This shortage of companionship left my inebriated roommates without a release for their energies, hence more drinking and frustration. Along about the time guys were staring romantically at guys, someone suggested touring the dorms to see if any lonely girls wanted to party. That was a bust. Even a tour of the apartments proved in vain, but it was in an apartment parking lot that someone suggested we peruse one of the campus pastures for grazing cows, and , do some cow tipping; an event, they assured me was required by all Purdue freshmen.
While I knew I was being suckered, curiosity and boredom got the best of me. I agreed to go along. It isn’t difficult to find a pasture of cows in Indiana, so events more swiftly to stumbling through manure-laden fields. Any apprehension I felt about going one-on-one with a thousand pounds of sleeping beef was more for the poor beast than myself It didn’t seem right to pick on an unsuspecting animal. The same reason I don’t hunt. My teammates assured me that the cows probably wouldn’t even notice, so I bowed to peer pressure and followed along with a sharp eye out for a rifle-toting farmer protecting against trespassers. Questioning teammates regarding the proper tipping techniques only resulted in drunken giggles. They suggest a simple charge into its side. Pushing a sleeping cow would only awaken it, making it harder to toss. Stupid me, I went along with their suggestions without much thought, except to pick a smaller side of beef without horns.

Up until that point in my life, I had carried a football, and been hit by all kinds of opponents, even different nationalities and skill levels. During two-a-days, I’d gotten my clock cleaned a numerous occasions, but running at full speed into the side of a sleeping cow was like running into a brick wall. It didn’t budge a millimeter. It was my one-hundred-ninety pounds against its seven to eight -hundred pounds. I bounced off and fell on my ass, without as much as a burp from the cow. My advice. If you’re a drunk and bored college freshman, stick to lighting farts with you boxers on. Tipping cows if for the self-abusive morons.