Iowa Goes Hard.

So I just returned from a lovely little visit in Iowa City and I confess myself utterly exhausted. My voice is gone, my phone is dinked and I have gyro stains on my jeans in a rather inconvenient place-- great gyro though.

Now we Jayhawks party as hard as any, but in a much different way. We have the ability to go out and get Mass faced on @$$ street Friday night, wake up when we wake up and begin the long hike that is Gameday. We don't care about the game -- unless it's basketball -- and it's almost a given that we will end up at The Wheel by the end of the night.

One thing you will never catch us doing however, is waking up at the crack of dawn to begin tailgating. As we learned this weekend, the loyal students of Iowa wake up at 6 a.m. and begin brushing their teeth with booz-- #Ke$haStatus. After Smirnoff "icing" our poor and innocent friend Gordy 4 times in a 20 minute span, we got in a quick grub sesh' and were at his Fraternity's tailgate by 7:30 a.m.-- FML. We were immediately were handed beers to shotgun, and then again, and then again. We were buzzin' by 9 a.m., feelin' great by 10:30 and were fist pumping so hard by 11 that I may have thrown my shoulder out-- #HahaNoButSeriously.

Then we hit the bars.

You know that point of the night when you come home for the "After Party Fiasco" typically around 2 a.m.? Iowa gets to that point around noon-- Definitely not as is tradition. But, as is tradition, we took over the bar like champions, started a dance circle and found a kid who had one too many to entertain ourselves with.

After the game, the students return to their respective homes to partake in the "Mid-Day Nap Sesh." They sleep from roughly 3:00-9:00 p.m., wake up, quick rinse and then it's back to the bars. Now for those of you who know me personally, you know that I am simply physically incapable of taking a nap-- maybe 4-5 times a year tops. So I grabbed a slice and was fortunate to have a friend to call to keep me company while my friends and the rest of the University hibernated until the evening-- #ShoutOut to Andi Ricciardi.

By this time, my voice was completely gone. Yet, and again for those of you who know me, know that another thing I am incapable of is shutting my mouth, so getting it back for the evening was a lost cause. With that in mind however, why was it that my voice magically disappeared at Iowa? And why was it that all of us were more tired than a typical Gameday in Lawrence? I am going to credit this one to what I like to call "Party Endurance."

Party Endurance  is one's ability to party at high levels for an extended period of time. As college kids, we all have a different tolerance and level of Party Endurance. But as any good physical trainer would tell you, endurance depends on the way you train.

Let's say, for example, that you are power-lifter. You can lift incredible amounts of weight and are a brute force when it comes to physical strength. One day, you decide you have too much bulk and want to incorporate some cardio into your routine. The next morning, you wake up early and go on a 6-mile run. Because you are inexperienced in cardiovascular training and your body is not used to this type of exercise, the next day you are an absolute wreck. Your legs feel like jelly, your @$$ hurts and you literally do not have the strength to get yourself off the couch. That too can be applied to partying. Think about anytime you or a friend has visited a school, the visitor is almost always either (a) the most inebrieated person at the bar or (b) KO'd the next day.

Final Fraze
Although Iowa undeniably goes HARD, I have to give a lot of the credit on this one to the "Party Endurance" X-factor. Forget football games, we Jayhawks are not made to get up at 6 a.m. at anytime of the week. We do however have the ability to wake up around 10 a.m. and truck until 2 in the morning. With that said, I challenge all of you Hawkeyes out there to take a trip down to the Dirty Bird of Lawrence and we'll see how you hold up without a "mid-day nap-time." All and all, I had an absolute blast this weekend so I want to send a special thanks to all of my friends at Iowa for showing us an unreal time and I hope you'll take me up on my challenge in the near future. #MadRespect, -bfw

P.S. If anyone finds my voice, please send it to the following Address:

Brian Frazier Wright
Unit C. 1001 Mississippi
Lawrence, KS
66044