Losing in Style

Yesterday Rutgers lost a second football game, which means it is no longer a "Championship Team". Some people cling to the deluded hope that, perhaps, if Rutgers wins every other game, it can yet be decent. Poor souls. They are setting themselves up to be crushed by reality. But not me, for I have hope of another kind. Which is why I am cheering for the Orange Club, even though "Orange Club" is the sorriest excuse for a team name that I have ever heard. Because, if we cannot have a great football team, at least we should have a totally lousy football team.

President McCormick said last year that the Scarlet Knights have finally put the university on the map, that having a good football team has made us more esteemed. But all the really esteemed schools have sorry excuses for football teams. Look at Cornell. They are in the wimpiest division ever, and they still lost every game they played. Look at Princeton. They are so bad, they would lose to Cornell if they were man enough to play them. And Princeton is even more prestigious a school than Cornell. The list goes on and on. Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Penn, Caltech, MIT, Georgetown. Ye, to truly be "On the map," you need a lousy football team.

And if Rutgers doesn't blow it, that is exactly what will happen. If we want to be a "Harvard on the Raritan," we gotta play like a Harvard on the Raritan. We need to suck. Now is our chance. Last year we showed the world we were almost as good as Texas A&M. But who cares about being almost as good as Texas A&M, when you can be almost as bad as Harvard? Only then will Rutgers truly be Ivy League.

So Schiano, get out there and blow the game, and all the games afterwards. And Mike, you continue to throw those interceptions. And Ray, break a leg, literally. As for the rest of the team, you guys read up on the Black Sox. Make Cicotte* your role model. Together we can make a difference. GO ORANGES!

So let's hear it for Old Rutgers.
And hope their football team doth pan.
May they lose every single game.
May they head on home in shame,
To the banks of the old Raritan.

On the banks of the old Raritan, my friends,
where old Rutgers ever more shall stand,
For has she not stood since the time of the flood,
On the banks of the old Raritan.

*Yeah yeah, I know he was a baseball player. But that only means it would be even easier for him to lose a football game.