Whatever Happened to Orchard Park Varsity RPS?

[Al Thorn]

I found this blog entry by "Iron Mic", detailing the rise and fall of Varsity Rock Paper Scissors at Orchard Park High School in New Jersey.  This should be read by every serious student of the sport, as the story of OPVHSRPS has lessons for us all.

[Master Roshambollah]

Al's link, above, no longer works. The site is still cached here.

An interesting reflection on the rise and demise of RPS within a high school context. Not a bad topic for meditation.

What now interests me more, almost seven years since the blog entry was posted, is the following; a list of the "first attendees" at their initial tournament (emphasis mine):

Resistence was the underground, subversive, fringe identity of RPS. Whoever heard of RPS as a varsity sport before? No one. And not just anyone is initially attracted to this sport. Look at the first batch of attendees: Bruce, Gill, Jeff, Nidhi, Mike Lovering, Matt Yuhnke, Will Smith, Hurley, Dwyer, and myself. We weren't cool (except for Jeff), and people like Yuhnke and  would almost be expected to be a part of something like RPS.

Lovering? Dwyer? If nothing else, this gives credence to the hypothesis that RPS skill has a genetic component. At the very least, an amusing synchronicity. There are no "accidents."

[custardchuk]

Add in Jeff, Will and Hurley (sic) and it gets a little stranger.