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.