You wonder sometimes what it really comes down to, the sort of people and customs it creates. You wonder about the actual daily nitty gritty of university life at schools where nothing matters but sports.
I’m not talking about the big public stuff, the big five-part Sports Illustrated feature on T. Boone Pickens’ Oklahoma State University and its multidimensional pigswill. I mean the microculture – the way people talk to each other; the way they dress; the way they interact, one on one.
For that, you need two types of stories that routinely hit the news:
1. the sadistic coach; and
2. the sadistic hazer.
These two highly placed boosters carry the microculture in a way we can see, a way chronicled – since it maims people and generates trials and lawsuits – by the local and national press. Oklahoma State’s macroculture is the five-part series; OSU’s microculture is the secretary of the Interfraternity Council who pulled a loaded gun on pledges when they said they wouldn’t take a bullet for their brothers. He didn’t shoot them, but in his rage he shot out the window of the pick-up in which they were sitting. Because they obviously had no idea how serious the brotherhood of boosters was at OSU.
My post’s headline comes from a voice mail the women’s lacrosse coach at the University of Louisville sent to one of her players. The university’s system of spies had spotted a player wearing a shirt with the name of a competing university on it.
Darby, change your clothes, don’t bother coming to practice today. Do you know that I just got a phone call about you wearing a Michigan State shirt? You obviously have no idea how serious athletics is at the University of Louisville. I do not want to see your face today until after practice, but your butt better be up in my office with a Louisville shirt on your chest when practice ends.
Winston Smith would have no trouble recognizing this message. It is the functional equivalent of mandating burqas for university women.
The University of Louisville – read about its vile, all-enveloping sports culture here (scroll down) – is now enjoying national coverage of this coach and her alleged abuse of the students on her team.
Are you beginning to see how twisted these all-American settings are? Looked at from both macro and micro perspectives, the nation’s sports sluts get sicker by the day.
October 7th, 2013 at 6:40AM
Wow. That is some lacrosse coach.
October 7th, 2013 at 7:51AM
our perhaps not so modern after all times seem to be full of stories of how tribalism is still the ruling order of the day.
October 7th, 2013 at 9:08AM
At this institution, the employees were ordered years ago to wear school colors two days per week. The directive originated in the development office, not athletics. Some power-crazed and crazy administrators even required their underlings to purchase (with their own money, of course) the official logo-ed garb and to wear it on certain days. The faculty could laugh this off, but the secretaries and housekeeping people felt that they had no choice, and they were probably right. A senior librarian, one of the hardest-working and most respected people here, was even berated by an assistant vice-idiot for not complying.
It’s sad to recall that once this place had aspirations of being a serious academic institution.
October 7th, 2013 at 9:56AM
tp: Yikes. Only thing to do with that is organize humorous subversions… Though I realize this is easier said than done…
October 7th, 2013 at 6:49PM
Years ago, in another century, my being bassoonist in the high school band brought with it the requirement to buy a new pep club jacket and wear it to the Friday pep club rallies where the band was obliged to perform. All students were encouraged to join this club and all had to buy new jackets. Used jackets were not allowed to be sold or worn. After one year, I was no longer in that particular band, and numerous others had also not continued in it. Selling the jackets was forbidden. I organized a clothing drive, collecting a couple dozen nice-looking school pep club jackets, which I then donated to a homeless shelter in Kansas City, whence emerged a couple of dozen shiftless drunks in our suburban school’s pep club jackets. I’d recommend some version of this tactic, except that the jackets nowadays seem already to be worn by shiftless drunks.
October 7th, 2013 at 7:52PM
Jeremy: LOL.