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By Mark Kukis, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Friday, June 16, 2006

Don Martin heard about the pickup hockey games at Fort Dupont in Anacostia by word of mouth. Players come early on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, taking the ice for matches that begin at 7 a.m. It's a varied crowd in terms of profession. Martin, who holds a Ph.D. in economics, works as a managing principal at CapAnalysis Group, the consulting arm of the law firm Howrey. Plumbers come, too, as do doctors, lobbyists, and politicos. Patrick Pettey, a lawyer at Williams & Jensen, played throughout his years as chief of staff to then-Sen. Bob Smith, R-N.H. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., has even laced up.

"Most of these people are either from the Northeast or Minnesota or something like that and wound up in Washington, D.C.," said Martin, a native of New York City who grew up playing the sport. "The great majority of them have been playing hockey all their lives, and this is just another place to play."

The rink at Fort Dupont is but one place around Washington where people connect for love of one game or another. Within walking distance of Capitol Hill, you can find everything from touch football games to polo matches. On any given evening in Washington, the pursuits might include kickball in Adams Morgan and sculling on the Potomac River. Running clubs like the Hash House Harriers move noisily through the same cityscape where tai chi enthusiasts find quiet spots to strike graceful poses alone. No sport is too obscure to have a following. Just ask the boccie crowd or the D.C. curling team. And most everywhere, spectators are as welcome as players. Good spots for viewing the Washington sporting scene can range from a cooler next to the sand volleyball pits behind the Lincoln Memorial to seats in the Turf Club at the Preakness. Whether you're in the stands or on the field, odds are you'll come across people sure to appear in a professional setting. In Washington, not even horseshoes is just for fun.

Take the hockey games at Fort Dupont, where the ice rink has a bank of windows looking toward Capitol Hill. There's not a lot of time to talk business or politics amid the din of slap shots and blades scraping ice. Generally, the people who participate are interested simply in playing, and the games tend to be fast-paced and intense. But business does come up. Martin, for example, has been hired as an expert witness in antitrust cases by lawyers he's met during games.

"You could be dressing or undressing in a locker room after a game, and a wide variety of topics comes up," Martin said. "Sometimes work comes up. Business does come out of this from time to time, although that's not why I play at Fort Dupont. The players are good, and the ice is great."

Of all the sporting scenes in Washington, none is more notorious as a catalyst for professional networking than congressional softball. Anybody who's been to a Capitol Hill softball game quickly realizes that athletic prowess is not a prerequisite. Witness Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., taking the field. Yes, the competitions can be quite intense, especially when games pit uber-partisans against one another. More often, though, people get involved to join the conversations that happen between innings and at the bars afterward.

Breana Teubner, a legislative assistant for Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., is a big believer in pursuing a lot of activities outside work. She chairs the D.C. Young Republicans and is a board member of the Arizona State Society. She's active in Junior League and the Madison, two women's organizations, and she's involved with the Congressional Legislative Staff Association. But, to make connections important to her work, Teubner values softball above all of her other outside activities. Teubner, who is pictured on the cover, illustrates her point by describing an imaginary phone call to a potential co-sponsor on legislation. The call sans softball connection goes something like this: Hi, this is Breana Teubner from Congressman Flake's office, and we wanted to let you know about a bill we have on ... The conversation with a softball connection sounds like this: Hey, it's Breana. Nice catch the other night. And did you see that last play at third? TO-tally! By the way, we're pulling together this bill on ... OK, I'll check in with you again on that after your boss gets back in town. And I'll see you Thursday.

Guess which call generates better results.

"Most people are here to do the same thing," Teubner says of congressional softball. "They want to meet as many people as they can and expand their networks, because it helps them in their job. And they want to go out and have a good time with like-minded people."

Tim Johnson, president of the Capitol Hill Tennis Club, says it all comes down to the power of shorts and T-shirts to level the playing field. There's a certain sense of egalitarianism and unity among a group of Washingtonians who will stand together exposing their pale legs and knobby knees. The people who can look each other in the eye with seriousness afterward are more than professional acquaintances. They're teammates and fellow competitors who also do business at times.

"It's very hard to pull rank when all you're wearing is a T-shirt and shorts, not the power tie and business suit," said Johnson, the legislative director for Rep. Michael Oxley, R-Ohio.

Johnson joined the tennis club when he moved to Washington in 1994 and became president in 2000. Established in 1969, the club has about 100 members, who range from junior staffers to former members of Congress. Former Sen. John Breaux, D-La., has long been a kind of patron saint for the club's players, who gather for matches every Saturday on the tennis courts at the Fort Myer officers' club.

Not surprisingly, Johnson said that the weekly matches offer a chance to network. Younger staffers have an opportunity to connect with more-senior operatives, opening channels of communication that would be difficult to establish in a strictly professional situation. And often the courts become a kind of testing ground for professional and political alliances that later take shape (or not) during the workweek. It's a lot easier to trust someone at the office if they've watched your back with a ball in play.

"In tennis, there's a certain decorum," Johnson said. "You rely on your partner to cover you. And you also rely on the entire team to make good line calls. You learn a lot about someone's honesty and integrity depending on what kind of line call they give you on a close shot."

Some of the amateur games around Washington have become bona fide institutions, such as the annual baseball showdown between Republican and Democratic members of Congress. Beltway golf is an institution all its own; many in Washington think of the course at Hains Point as a satellite office. Other corners of the Washington sporting scene are almost secret societies, like the network of bettors and bookies operating on Capitol Hill and K Street. However they do it, the people who engage in sports around the capital tend to combine a professional and personal interest with athletic ritual.

Criminal defense lawyer Larry Gondelman, for example, has been the de facto commissioner of a weekly basketball game that's been tipping-off every Saturday for almost 32 years. Players come by invitation only to the community center on California Street just west of Connecticut Avenue for a weekend game of hoops. Participants are mostly lawyers who went to Georgetown University together. But others are included from time to time.

"One of the regulars these days is a guy who by chance crashed at the home of one of the originals back in 1980," said Scott Thomas, a former Federal Election Commission chairman who's now a lawyer with Dickstein Shapiro Morin & Oshinsky, as are several other players. "He's in real estate publishing, and he's guided several guys in the group regarding home sale and purchase. Another guy who was invited about five years ago writes for The Washington Post, and he's always looking for good gossip. A few years ago, there was a guy showing up who was a physical therapist. He was very popular during the warm-up period and at the end of our games!"

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