PANAMA CITY, Fla. — The one they call Naco faces his opponent, fist raised, trying to ignore TV cameras, jeers from spring-break revelers and girls in itsy bitsy bikinis a few yards away.
Standing in the center of a boxing ring on a stage erected on the beach, the diminutive Syracuse University sophomore is tied, one best-of-three set apiece, in the USA Rock Paper Scissors League’s inaugural collegiate tournament.
A referee gives the signal. The competitors pound their fists one, two, three times.
Naco throws a clenched hand — rock. Stone Thrower, a sunburned University of Oklahoma student in a backward baseball cap, extends two outstretched fingers — scissors.
Rock beats scissors. Naco is one throw from victory.
The thousands of raucous spectators on the beach below roar and raise plastic cups, a red wave rippling through the crowd of skin.
Winning carries more than bragging rights: The ultimate champion will score $20,000 for tuition. Winners of rock-paper-scissors tournaments at nearly two dozen colleges across the country were flown here by the sponsor, PepsiCo’s AMP Energy drink, to compete against each other and wild-card players plucked off the beach.
Off to the side of the stage, a tall, bald man in a bright blue shirt and white shorts dotted with lobsters grins and takes a picture. He is Matti Leshem, commissioner of the USA Rock Paper Scissors League. The Los Angeles marketer brought the child’s game to casinos, and now he’s turning it into a spring break sport.
“Your brains got you into college, but you’re going to use your fists to pay for it,” he yelled to the crowd before the match.
Leshem is intent on exploring — and exploiting — the sexy side of a game usually reserved for school yards.
The 46-year-old promotes events with buxom women in bikinis, brings in beer and energy-drink companies as sponsors and strikes television deals, such as the one to broadcast these finals later this month on MTVU, the cable network’s college channel.
The game has a low barrier to entry: It requires no equipment, and, he likes to say, it’s so simple that even a one-armed person can play. In the game, rock smashes scissors, scissors cut paper, paper smothers rock. When each player throws the same hand, it’s a stalemate.
He says you can tell a lot about people by their choices: Someone who throws rock first is either aggressive or lazy. Paper, represented by an outstretched hand, palm down, means you’re staid and observant. Scissors suggest complicated and sexy.
Leshem says he has perfected how to properly televise the matches, and he landed a publishing deal with a HarperCollins imprint for his book, “The Zen of Rock Paper Scissors,” about how the game can be applied to situations including work, love and death.
One competitor, Joseph “Smashwell” Miller, a football player, doesn’t consider it a real sport.
“This would be a game,” he said. “Real sports have balls.”
Naco disagrees. The mechanical engineering major (real name: Jonathan Monaco) plays regularly with his roommates to determine who has to get breakfast from the dining hall or clean up the bathroom. He won the tournament at Syracuse. For the championships here, he kicked his game up a notch by focusing on “body composure” and donning intimidating red sunglasses.
“Once you get $20,000 on the line,” he said, “it’s a sport.”
A big crowd gathers under the scorching sun, drawn by the boxing ring — and the free N.E.R.D. concert MTV is hosting on the beach after the rock-paper-scissors finale.
“Y’all drunk yet?” someone in the front row asks. Another says, “I’m betting on the kid in the pink hat,” referring to Stone Thrower. On stage, the camera pans over the four finalists — all male — as they make macho faces and try to show personality. Four “ring girls” in hot-pink bikinis swarm around them. Hands are thrown, runners-up determined, the field narrowed to two. It’s Naco and Stone Thrower.
They face each other, trembling as the referee pauses for suspense. Cameras zoom in on their faces then settle on their hands.
Stone Thrower wins the first best-of-three set. Naco wins the second. In the third, Naco’s rock throw puts him within spitting distance of the title.
Leshem peers into a monitor, rubbing his hands with excitement.
The referee places his hand between those of the contestants, then lifts it swiftly to signal the start of play. One, two, three.
Naco throws paper. Stone Thrower, true to his name, throws rock.
Paper covers rock. Naco wins.
He jumps around the ring, hugging his friends, then rushes to the front of the stage where Leshem hands him an AMP beverage to swig. After a few minutes, Leshem walks out with an oversized yellow check for $20,000, which Naco hoists into the air.
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