Each week, the Record (using a script in R) randomly selects a student at the College for our One in Two Thousand feature, excluding current Record board members. This week, Andrew Nachamkin ’24 discussed pineapple on pizza, his love of Halloween, and playing competitive Super Smash Bros. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Lindsay Wang (LW): Somebody, maybe it was Peter [Miles ’24], suggested —
Andrew Nachamkin (AN): [Laughs.]
LW: No, no, don’t worry! I have “pineapple on pizza, question mark.”
AN: I love pineapple on pizza. I will advocate for it as long as possible, although what people get wrong about pineapple on pizza is that they put ham with it. It’s better to put bacon with it. Bacon-pineapple is a much better combo than ham-pineapple.
LW: Why? Is it because of the crispiness?
AN: It’s crispier, and also it’s saltier, so it balances out better. Sometimes you get bad ham … but bacon and pineapple will always be unbeatable.
LW: Okay… If you say so. I’m still unconvinced. What have been your nicknames, and what’s your least and your most favorite?
AN: I used to really not like being called “Andy” in middle and high school, so of course everyone called me Andy. But now, I’ve just been called Andy so much that it just stuck. I have entire friend groups that only call me Andy. Worst nickname… Probably “Napkin.” My last name sometimes autocorrects to Napkin, so that just kind of stuck. I get called “Champ” a lot because “cham-kin” kind of rhymes.
LW: Why [are you] a classics and statistics major? Great combo.
AN: They both use a lot of scary Greek letters. In all seriousness, though, for me, they’re both ways of making the world tangible. I love math, but I’m really bad at proofs, so stats with its polls and samples and computer code and graphs is a very tangible way to turn math into something tactile and real. And in the same way [with] classics, I have a big interest in church history and the early Christian movement, but it can be very abstract at times. Classics with its archaeology and its languages and its emphasis on the real side of history is a very, again, tactile way for me to engage with this thing I find interesting. So even though they might not look like they have a ton in common, they’re both ways of really getting to something that feels real.
LW: I was also told that you have a tattoo now — when did you get that?
AN: I wear long sleeves at Williams because of the weather, so most people still don’t know, but I got this [tattoo] early my sophomore year. [It’s] my grandmother’s handwriting. She was a big mentor in my life, and when she passed away, I had a lot of notes from her. The final note she had written to me was really particularly meaningful, and so I got one of the lines [“This is your world”] in her handwriting on my arm. I’m really grateful for my grandma, and her influence continues to grow on me. I knew I wanted to get a tattoo, but I didn’t know what it would be, and when I saw this note from her, I was like, “If it’s going to be anything, it’s going to be that.”
LW: Oh, that’s really sweet. On a slightly more light-hearted note, do you have any Halloween traditions?
AN: I have a big Halloween tradition. [Laughs.] Oh, I’m so excited. Thank you. This is an alley-oop. Senior year of high school, I really needed a costume. I remember driving to Target the night before Halloween and being like, “I need to find something,” and the only thing I could find was this inflatable flamingo that makes it look like you’re riding the flamingo, so I wore that to school the next day, and my teacher made me deflate it to take a calculus quiz. But the reception was so positive, I was like, “Okay, I think inflatables might be the move.”
I get to Williams — and this is the COVID year — and I’m thinking I need some costume that works for social distancing, too. What if I got an even bigger inflatable? So I bought a 7-foot tall inflatable shark, and I ran all around Frosh Quad on Halloween in that costume. The reception to that was so positive, I was like, “All right, I gotta make this my thing now.”
Sophomore year, I was lucky enough to find a 9-foot-tall inflatable polar bear costume, and I wore that to Hoxsey. I just remember waking up the next morning, and I was on 10 people’s Instagram accounts. They all had photos with this polar bear. It was incredible.
So then last year, I bought an inflatable giraffe costume that was about the same size, and I wore it to a party, and I had a bunch of people come up to me and go, “Were you the polar bear from last year?” Now, it’s my final year of college — I have one more inflatable coming. I do think I peaked with the polar bear because it was so much taller than all these other costumes, but I’m gonna do one more inflatable. I love Halloween. I think it’s so fun to run around in these inflatables. I’m already so tall [6 feet 8 inches], so having 2 feet on top of me is just incredible.
LW: The last thing that someone did ask me to talk to you about was Super Smash Bros.
AN: I love Super Smash Bros. I used to play competitively in early high school. I live in a rural area. There weren’t many tournaments going on, but I have a lot of family in Chicago, and Chicago has a really big scene. So whenever I visited family, I’d go to these regional tournaments in Chicago, and I was awful. Out of 128 people, I usually made it to the second round and then got destroyed.
But I’ll never forget one tournament: I’m 14 years old, I’m at this big Chicago tournament, and the unanimous No. 1 player in the world, who apparently was in Indiana that week, just decided to come to the Chicago local. So I’m like, “Shoot, I’m gonna get to meet the best player in the world.” And then, just the way the seed randomly worked, I found out I was the 65th seed, which means if I win my round one, I have to play the No. 1 seed.
I win my round one, and my opponent just goes, “You know you’re going to have to play this guy, right?” And this is a guy that I had watched on live streams for years. He’s almost [at] mythical proportions [with] how good he is at the game. And now I’m sitting in this little Chicago venue, about to play him on a live stream. I was so nervous — I played so bad. I was gonna lose anyway, but I was so nervous. My hands were shaking. It was a crazy game, and it was very humbling.
LW: Last question — I always like to ask seniors this: What would you say to a past version of you, right before coming to Williams?
AN: Say yes to group events and suggestions. A lot of my most fun moments at this place have happened pretty spontaneously. I don’t want to put down planning things, of course, but just say yes to things. A lot of my very close friends I have made completely by accident through other people because I just showed up to an event last minute. Don’t get so busy that the really fun, spontaneous things don’t get to fit into your schedule because that’s where a lot of the really cool stuff happens. That, and go to TA hours.
