In The Locker Room With...

Stacey Gerson and Claire Jahns

Meet sophomore roommates Stacey Gerson and Claire Jahns. They�ll intimidate you, beat you up, spit on you, then bite your head off after copulation. They�re Preying Manti. 

So you two are roommates. How did you meet?

CJ: We actually met at a [summer] journalism school at Northwestern.
SB: Yeah, Claire hung out with the nerds and I was with the cool people.

How did the team come up with the name �The Preying Manti�?

CJ: Nobody knows.
SG: It�s really not the right plural form of Mantis. It should be Mantises.

Since you live with each other, do you find yourself fighting a lot?

SG: Yeah, we definitely get into a lot of fights.
CJ: In our room anything�s game. Stacey always tries to pin me, but I always win. She�s scrappy, though.
SG: Claire will pin me, but I�ll spit on her. I�m not a spit tease.

[Editor laughs his ass off]. What kind of interesting things happen on the frisbee field?

CJ: Well, we take pop songs and make them into cheers. My favorite cheer of ours is �Bite their fucking head off! Chomp!�
SG: We�re pretty vicious.

Do you get into fights on the field?

SG: Well, not really, but the men�s team gets into a lot of rumbles.
CJ: Yeah, the men form circles and attack. You don�t want to be in the circle.
SG: The circle does some serious damage.

So what positions are there in frisbee?

CJ: Well, there are handlers, mids and longs. Longs go long. I�m kind of a mid-longer.
SG: I�m more of a mid-handler.

Would you say that frisbee is kind of a combination of a lot of other sports?

CJ: Yeah, it�s pretty much a combination of soccer, football, baseball and basketball. Our captain last year said it was more like equestrian.
SG: It�s a melting pot of sports � just like America.

Well said. Do you play even when the weather is god-awful?

SG: We�re pretty fierce, we practice outdoors and play games no matter what the weather is like.

What�s with the food fights?

CJ: Well, sometimes we take over Stevenson, especially Longman. Yeah, we�ve been known to have food fights.

How much beer can a frisbee hold?

CJ and SB: Actually a frisbee can hold four and a half beers.
SG: [To Claire] You always steal what I have to say and say it first.
CJ: You know I dominate in the rumble, in the quad and periodically on the field.

[Stacey takes over interview]

SG: [In reference to an earlier �In the Locker Room� interview] I just want to mention that our skirts are way shorter than my roomate [sophomore tennis player] Alaina [Fotiu-Wojtowicz] and the rest of the women�s tennis team�s skirts.

Oh, those neon-green ones?

SG: Yeah, we make them ourselves. The long slit helps because we have to be really agile.
CJ: They�re quite stylish too.

Are you two going pro?

SG: There isn�t a professional frisbee team.
CJ: I don�t know, I might get stuck in the minors.

Do you ever lay out for catches?

SG: I�ve done a few full dives, but I know Claire can�t.
CJ: Okay, I have never layed out, and I�m just incapable of it.

Why�s that?

CJ: I don�t know, I just can�t do it.
SG: The term for Claire is �scaredy-cat.� The term for me is �tough-as-nails.�
CJ: I�m going to kick Stacey�s ass within the next 15 minutes.
SG: I will spit on you, Claire, and bite you just to rub it in.

[Stacey punches Claire]

Why all of the violence?

CJ: You�re fucking going down, Stacey.
SG: I�ll kick you in the junk.

I�m out. Whoa.


Are you an Oberlin athlete, dedicated fan or an athletic guru who feels you are interesting and would like to be interviewed? Get some balls and e-mail sports editor Zach at Zachary.Pretzer@oberlin.edu.