Beer pong (also known as Dartmouth pong or Backgammon) is a drinking game loosely based on ping pong, that involves use of paddles to hit a ping pong ball into obstacles on the opposing side. The origin of beer pong is generally credited to Dartmouth College. The name "beer pong" also refers to a similar game sometimes called Beirut, in which players throw a ping pong ball by hand at an opponent's cups located across a table.
The origins of the game are obscure but it has been attributed to a Dartmouth College fraternity party. An Alpha Phi Delta fraternity alumnus, David Thielscher, class of 1954, recalled in an interview for The Dartmouth newspaper that beer pong was played when he was an undergraduate. History professor Jere Daniell '55 stated that he played the game as a student, and Bob Shirley '57 stated that he began playing in 1956. (Shirley suggests that the game began when spectators rested their cups of beer on a table during a ping-pong game). One of the earliest published photographs depicting a game of pong appeared in Colorado School of Mines' 1961 yearbook The Prospector. Dartmouth's 1968 yearbook Aegis (page 304) also has a published photograph of a game of pong.
Beer pong at Dartmouth was the only college-sponsored drinking competition in the country, until 1977 when the college decided to discontinue its sponsorship of the games. Official derecognition would not reduce the level of beer pong activity at Dartmouth or elsewhere, but would lead to many new variations on the game.
According to a 1999 New York Times article, pong "has been part of fraternity life for at least 40 years, as hallowed as rush or Winter Carnival". Other Ivy League newspapers have called Dartmouth "the spiritual home of beer pong", and characterized pong as "a way for Dartmouth frat boys to get drunk [that] has become what is arguably America's favorite drinking game".
In the early 1970s, Dartmouth briefly sanctioned the game as an intramural sport, making it the only college-sponsored drinking contest in the country. In 1977, Dartmouth ended this practice.