Note: A preview from my upcoming autobiography, Life’s Too Short to Smoke Cheap Cigars (Or to Drink Cheap Whiskey.)
Scrap!
Some dichotomies are as old as time.
Take the issue of urban (or, at least, suburban) vs. rural.
A Long Time Ago:
That old timey village may have looked something like this.
I can picture a time many thousands of years ago; a Friday night, perhaps (or whatever they called Fridays in that remote time) in a little village in the Fertile Crescent. A half-dozen or so teenage boys are hanging around outside a date merchant’s shop on the edge of the village, trading anecdotes about some of the local girls. One of them has brought a goat’s stomach, dried, cured and stuffed with straw, and as the teens talk, they are tossing the goat’s stomach back and forth.
These boys had in fact invented a game that they play with this makeshift ball; they call it “Goat.” This half-dozen boys consider themselves rather good Goat players and have amassed some hubris over that fact.
Entering the scene another half-dozen boys. But where the Goat players come from merchant families in the village, these new entries are clearly from a more rural background. They have just finished herding a bunch of cattle into town for sale, their pockets now clink with cowrie shells, and the rural kids are looking to have some fun.
Now, here, in the gathering evening, these two groups have come face to face.
“Well,” one of the village boys says, “look here – where did you guys come from?”
“The big valley north of here,” the biggest of the rural kids asks. “Why? Who are you guys?”
“Can’t you tell?” The leader of the village kids strikes a pose. “We’re Goat players!”
“Look more like goat shaggers to me,” one of the rural kids replies.
Things went downhill from there. Busted noses and black eyes almost certainly ensued. It truly is a tale as old as time.
The fact is the rivalry between country kids and townies certainly goers back as long as there have been towns. And that takes me to Allamakee County, decades ago:
Summertime Fun:
Uff da! Lutefisk!
In neighboring Winneshiek County, about twenty miles from our homestead, lay the scenic little town of Decorah. Decorah had a number of attractions for local teenagers; it was the site of the only movie theater and the only bowling alley in the region, there were several fast-food joints, a main drag with a pizza place and a couple of taverns, and a small private college with the usual contingent of college girls.
Every summer, Decorah, originally a community of Norwegian immigrants, hosted the Nordic Fest. Nowadays I’m told the Nordic Fest weekend is sedate, mostly focused on the history of the area and displays of Nordic food and culture.
In the late Seventies, though, while Nordic food and culture were on display, so were several beer tents in the various parking lots in the downtown area. The Nordic Fest weekend was a party, none better in the area, and this was in the days when teenagers could legally partake if they were eighteen.
Needless to say, I always planned to attend Nordic Fest weekend, and so did the collection of miscreants and ne’er-do-wells I called my friends.
The problem we rural kids always encountered, of course, could be summed up in one word:
Townies. And whenever townies and rural kids met up, a scrap was frequently the result.
By Way of Background:
Let me take a moment and define the word “townie.”
This particular pejorative doesn’t necessarily be keyed to where someone lived. One member of our group, Albert Hedley, had spent a good part of his youth in an actual by-gosh city, Chicago, and in fact lived in Waukon, where his father ran the hardware store. But nobody called Albert a townie.
A “townie” was someone who believed in the inherent superiority of those who dwelled in town, as opposed to those of us who happily lived on farms or out in the woods. Waukon, being a small town with a majority of retired farmers living there, didn’t have many actual townies in those days; but Decorah, still a small town but twice the size of Waukon, had an economy largely based around the college and its employees and instructors, and therefore had a hefty population of actual townies. The more annoying of the townies were those who belonged to the school’s sports clique; their participation in football or basketball and the resulting status as athletes frequently led them to believe they were tougher than farm kids who had grown up wrestling calves and tossing around hay bales and feed sacks.
Granted plenty of rural kids played sports as well, which just complicated things. Especially when local kids gathered in Decorah to have some fun. And it was that Decorah that was the site of Nordic Fest every summer, the best party for miles around, which attracted a lot of big, tough rural kids.
This One Time:
The summer before, several of us drove all the way to Des Moines for a concert. Compared to our local small towns, Des Moines was quite the metropolis.
We had timed our drive to arrive plenty early. Pre-concert, a bunch of us were hanging around in the parking lot near my buddy Jon’s ancient Dodge van, in which we had a cooler full of beer.
Two hours until the concert venue (a local foot ball stadium) opened, and our group of five was well into the beers when some locals showed up.
There were eight of them, and five of us. Their leader – at least, we assumed he was the leader, as he was the biggest – was a bruiser, six-two at least, probably well over two hundred pounds.
Two groups of teenage boys stood in the late July sun, looking suspiciously at each other. The sun sent heat waves up off the blacktop of the parking lot; somewhere in the middle distance a cicada rasped.
“Where are you guys from?” the big guy asked. I noticed him looking closely at the Allamakee County plates on Jon’s van.
“Up north of Waukon,” I answered.
Silence for a few more moments. The Des Moines townies spread out a little. Our group did likewise.
“Don’t suppose you fellas would want to share some of that beer,” the big guy asked with a slanted, feral grin.
“Not so much,” Jon answered. “Go buy some of your own, and hell, we’ll hang out with you guys.”
“We’d rather have yours,” Feral replied, grinning more widely now, “…and have you guys gone back to Waukon or wherever you came from.”
“Sorry, guys, but we ain’t gonna do that,” came a voice from behind the townies. They turned, in unison…
…and there stood Mark Mallek, all six-foot-seven, two hundred sixty pounds of him.
Even with Mark on our side, five against eight were long odds, or so Feral thought. He grinned, wound up, and let fly with a haymaker right against Mark’s jaw. Mark’s head snapped an inch or two to the side; he turned his head slowly back, grinned, and said in his friendliest tone, “you shouldn’t have done that.”
A few moments later the townies helped their semi-conscious friend Feral into a car and left with muttered apologies. We finished our beers, enjoyed the concert, and later drove back north with no further incident.
Not all of our scraps ended that easily, though.
Back to the Story:
The actual by-gosh town of Decorah.
Back to Nordic Fest.
One of the major attractions of Nordic Fest was, of course, a wealth of blonde, blue-eyed girls that were the product of the Norwegian community. The downside of that was, of course, the attention that these same girls brought from the townies.
Now add beer to that mix.
Now, to be fair, us rural kids had some preconceived notions of our own. In general, we thought townies were weaklings, but just by laws of averages, not all of them were, and the boys who grew up in sports could be pretty tough themselves. This was a recipe for trouble; we thought the townies were wimps because they didn’t do farm work, and they thought we were wimps because we didn’t compete in athletics. Sooner or later, something was bound to happen to disabuse both sides of these notions, and that happened, sure enough, at Nordic Fest in the summer of 1980. And, for anyone who knows teenaged boys, it should come as no surprise that it was one of those blonde, blue-eyed gals that was the genesis of the Great Nordic Fest Scrap of 1980.
It began with a big group of us rural kids gathered in the beer tent the town had set up in the Fareway parking lot. It was a Saturday evening, most of us had been indulging generously and grinning broadly at every girl that walked past; some of the girls even grinned back (never underestimate farm-boy charm) and several promising conversations had been struck up.
I was, at that moment, not graced with feminine company, and so was ingesting a red solo cup full of beer and gassing with my pals Jon and Dave in the parking lot near the main entrance to the beer tent, when we heard a shout from inside: “Hey, you son of a bitch, are you hitting on my girlfriend?”
We recognized the voice; Steve Schneider, a member of the local high school’s football team, a pretty big guy, and a staunch, confirmed townie.
At the time we thought they all looked like this.
We also recognized the feminine voice raised in angry reply; Steve’s recently-ex girlfriend, Debbie, an archetypical blonde, blue-eyed gal of obvious Nordic descent, who shouted back, “I’m not your girlfriend anymore, you jerk!”
And finally, we recognized the voice that protested in return: “Geeze, Steve, you guys broke up! Everyone knows it!” It was our friend Albert, the smallest of our particular group.
The three of us looked at each other. “Shit,” Dave opined. “Better go see.”
Inside, we found Albert, backed up by Mark Mallek, the three Ackley brothers, four or five of the expansive Schultz clan and a couple other farm kids, squared off against most of the North Winneshiek High School sports clique.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” I said, trying to lighten things up with a quote from a movie that was popular at the time. It didn’t work. The three of us moved in to back up our side.
To this day I’m not sure who threw the first punch. The old man who oversaw the beer tent shouted us to move it outside, but it was the ebb and flow of combat, not the old man’s angry shout, that caused the donnybrook to spill outside.
We waded in.
I found myself facing Jim Hoss, one of the football team’s “linemen,” whatever that was; I had a pretty good idea that it had nothing to do with the power and phone lines that ran all over northeast Iowa. He was a big guy, though, and was coming at me fast. He threw a punch that I managed to duck; I tossed one back, aiming for his nose, but Jim turned his head down and let me hit the top of his skull. “Yowp!” I was quite sure I had broken a couple of fingers, but I still had to deal with the townies. Jim, stunned, staggered away.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Dave lash out at another townie. Dave was blessed with a tall, lanky build, long legs, and a limber frame; he struck out with a kick, catching his opponent in the solar plexus, and dropping him.
Albert had taken a couple of shots from Steve Schneider but was still game; he took a couple of wide swings, missing both, before Mark Mallek managed to grab Steve, pick him up, and chuck him into the box of a nearby pickup.
The ruckus attracted attention, as ruckuses do. All over the block, rural guys and townies were squaring off. I managed to knock another townie down just before a well-swung fist broke my nose. I saw stars. I swear I actually heard birds chirping, but beyond that, I heard something of much greater import:
“Oh, shit! The cops!”
It is part of the nature of small towns, unlike bigger cities, that the cops are never very far away. At Nordic Fest, the cops were usually within a few hundred yards, and usually prepped to answer just such a donnybrook, and unlike today, those local cops generally addressed civic unrest with nightsticks and fists.
We ran. I passed a Chevy pickup to find Steve Schneider climbing out of the box with a dazed expression. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“Cops!”
I found myself running with Steve down the alley behind the stores that lined the main drag, as flashing red lights and sirens emanated from the parking lot in which lay the beer tent. We turned past the pizza place and headed for the main street, only to hear an official-sounding shout: “You two! Stop right there!”
We didn’t. It was dark enough, as we later determined, that most of both sides of the donnybrook escaped with no more than bumps and bruises.
A few minutes later Steve and I stopped. “Where the hell are we, anyway?” Steve asked.
“Block off Water Street,” I guessed, looking around. “Yeah – there’s the Corner Bar, right up there.”
“Hell,” Steve said, “I’m thirsty. Want to grab a beer?”
“Sure,” I replied.
Beer Heals All Wounds
We went inside the Corner Bar. The bar was filled with laughing young men, most of them marked up to one degree or another. Most of the combatants from both sides were now drinking beer together.
Albert walked over and handed Steve a mug. “Here,” he said. “Listen, about Debbie…”
Steve took a drink and waved a hand. “Forget it, man,” he said. “I don’t know what I was pissed off about. I mean, she dumped me a week ago now.”
The evening proceeded liquidly after that. Eventually we wound up back at the beer tent, where we stayed until it closed down. Despite some very direct looks from the beer tent workers, the night concluded peacefully; the aggression had long since worked out of all of us.
After closing time, I ended up in the parking lot with my pals, along with Steven and a couple of the Winneshiek county football guys, trading bad jokes that, in our state of inebriation, everyone found very funny.
“You know,” Steve said, laughing carefully around his fat lip, wincing through a pair of shiners, “…you guys, you ain’t so bad after all.” And that was the great irony of the Great Nordic Fest Scrap of 1980; several lifelong friendships were borne of the conflict.
These Days:
These days our population is increasingly urbanized, but the rural v. urban divide may be more pronounced than ever. From what I understand, nowadays, scrapping by teenaged boys is harshly restricted, and I wonder if that’s for the best. We already have a generation upcoming that has known little or nothing of hardship, and a plurality, if not a majority, of teenaged boys today from all sources have never taken a punch or thrown one.
I really wonder if that’s a good thing. A little scrap can be an outlet for aggression that might otherwise take a more serious turn. It certainly worked for us, and at times, we even gained some new friends from the scrapping.
A poke in the snoot is, after all, not that serious a thing in the long run.
I’m convinced there are more stories than there was time for them to have been lived.
I bet you are the kind of guy to question the size of fish people catch
I have a question for the commentariat.
*hover over link, sees YouTube, passes*
How do you even find these things?
They’re drawn to him like toilet paper to a shoe sole.
You’re not wrong.
that is old stuff was certainly liked before
Unless its the dude and the fish….no way
LOLOLOL
It was dark enough, as we later determined, that most of both sides of the donnybrook escaped with no more than bumps and bruises.
Well, and the cops were probably interested mostly in stopping the brawl. Arresting people means paperwork and hassles. I grew up in a small town, and in hindsight the cops knew damn well that any vehicle loaded with high school boys was also equipped with beer and, likely, pot. Even when pulled over late at night, nobody got arrested. They knew we weren’t really trouble that mattered.
Back in the day, the city of Richmond was one of the most crime-ridden in the country, while suburban Henrico County (where I lived) was very sedate. The difference between city cops and county cops was made apparent by the police responses to two senior-year parties: one at my house, one at the house of a friend who lived within the city limits. At my house, when a neighbor called the cops, they sat outside for a couple of hours waiting to catch kids leaving. At my friend’s house, the cops came in, announced “Party’s over, go home” and just watched and did nothing as teenagers came streaming out with half-full 12 packs still in hand.
That’s how I remember it too. Back in the day if you got pulled over and were caught with beer and/or weed the cops would either “confiscate” it and tell you to bring your parents to the police station if you wanted it back. Or they would make you dump/pour it out. As long as you and your party were polite you got sent on your way. Mouth off, you’d probably go to jail. Arrests were rare.
great story
Indeed, particularly the timeless aspect of teenage behavior. Though one does wonder at how much socially is being changed, that evolutionary biology and psychology are not at all adapted to.
Agreed.
Lutefisk is served with guacamole? The things I learn here.
Well, if you’re going to put inedible food on a plate, might as well pair it with other stuff that can’t be consumed.
But that raises the question of why the potatos are there.
And they sprinkled the lutefisk with bacon so (((they))) can’t have any.
Yeah, I’m calling foul on that. Lutefisk should only be eaten with salt and butter.
Possibly the only thing that can’t be improved by bacon.
Lutefisk should be eaten?
Only by your enemies.
So you can pull a Norwegian away from an ocean, but you can’t pull them away from [blech].
I believe that’s Grønnerterstuing. Which I guess is pronounced “grrrrr zero nerter stewing”.
Growing up in NW Minnesoda in the middle of lake country we all thought we were pretty slick because our town was about 5K permanent residents and up to about 20K during the summer on a big weekend like the 4th.
We weren’t so much rural/townie as local/tourist. Lots of scraps at various lake cabins when the tourista boys got mad because their girls had invited some of us locals out to party at their cabin while the parents were away. Good times.
* Des Moines? you really were a city boy Animal. Our big city was Fargo/Moorhead. An hour drive from my home town.
I should point out that our population of 5K did make us a fairly big town for the region. We had hellacious drives for school sports so we could play schools with a similar population.
5k?! Only 1 town within 45 miles any direction that big here.
I had a girlfriend for a little while who was from rural Alabama. She originally told me that she was from Geneva AL, pop. 4452 (according to Wikipedia). Later on, she clarified that Geneva was the “city”, and where she went to high school, but she was actually from Black AL, pop. 207. We kept in touch later on, and when she moved to Dothan, she talked about that as if she were moving to Manhattan, “the big city”.
Sweet girl, but verrrrry country.
Unreconstructed and I had a fraternity brother from a town in Oklahoma that was too small to have it’s own post office so his address was in Elk Hart KS.
How small? Population NINE. Four of which were at OU, so during the school year the population was only five.
I’d forgotten about that particular small town angle.
That’s pretty crazy. When I was in radar school, two of the guys in my class and one in the class in from of me was from Aztec, NM, and I thought that was quite a statistical oddity that three guys from the same small town all joined the Marines around the same time and all ended up in a very small MOS (I’m pretty sure there are fewer than 100 ATC radar techs in the Corps at any one time), but four of nine puts three of 6000 to shame.
My brother-in-law was born and raised in St. Stephens, AL. According to Wikipedia, the unincorporated area has a population of 580. When my sister first married him and moved there, she didn’t get her mail at first. When they went to the post office to find out why, the postmaster told them he’d set the mail aside because he knew no [BIL’s family name] by that name.
Yup. We were the biggest town in any direction for 50 miles at least. Fargo/Moorhead (60 mi to west), Fergus Falls (60mi South), Crookston/Thief River Falls (100 mi North), Bemidgi (85 mi NE).
And Crookston/Thief River might not be bigger. We were pretty close and if they aren’t bigger than Winnipeg is the next biggest north of us.
1 town, and 457587432890573 bars.
DaFino: “They told me, that when I find her, I should show this to her. *shows the Dude Dust Bowl picture* It’s the family farm outside of Moorhead, Minnesota. They think it will make her homesick.”
The Dude: “How do you expect to keep them on the farm once they’ve seen Karl Hungus?”
To the powers that be: I just submitted an article, I prefer the 11 AM slot, next Monday or Wednesday would be good, I am off work next Friday.
Heh…
RACIST!!!!!!!!
Whoa!
OT but I’m actually pretty surprised they are actually going to torpedo college football over covid-19 without even giving the season a shot.
This might backfire horrendously on them. How many people are fine with bloated public university spending because they enjoy college sports?
How many athletic departments are even going to survive with no football season?
I have a feeling that’s the point, and that the administrators really hate the athletic departments.
I think they’re fucking idiots who are cutting off the nose to spite their faces.
Like, broadly speaking, how many Republican voters shrug at leftist university nonsense because they like to tailgate, and they met their spouse at State U? If there’s no more college sports, who many business major former frat boys are gonna be eager to write big checks to the university?
I tend to think it’s short-sighted too, but it’s been pretty obvious for decades that a lot of sportswriters hate the culture of the sports they’re covering, and that they’re well out of step with the general population. It shouldn’t be surprising that college presidents would feel the same way.
Don’t forget what precipitated Mike Gundy’s rant at a sports reporter was her thoroughly nasty opinion piece on one of his players.
in what other industry does a 4-6 year services contract evolve into a continuing donor relationship? it’s weird. I paid you for my education. why the hell would I give you money for no return?
$4.1 billion revenue sport. Hmm…
Not this year. Wonder how much of those tv contracts they have to pay back.
Sorry Sloopy.
The stupidest timeline indeed.
So far so good for CUSA.
But why does the Big Ten have 14 votes?
Their good at sports… not so good with math.
While I’m not good with homonyms.
NTTAWWT.
2 are democrats.
And why does the Big Ten care what Nebraska thinks?
Welp, that saves me having to track down Badger games on streaming services.
What a massive financial hit to those schools. Although I don’t think college football is as corrosive to education as high school football*, you have to wonder how much it distracts from the actual purpose of those schools.
*I have long believed the best thing you could do for high school education in Texas is abolish high school football.
I’m all for the separation of school and sport. Club sports for those so inclined, and stop bilking the local taxpayers for stadia used by a handful of kids.
I’m guessing you didn’t know any D1 football players in college. I showed up for one of my finals and surprised one of the guys I knew who was on the football team was in that class. Literally the first time he was there. He was a freshman on a redshirt year. He said ‘Oh, I’ve just been going to ‘study hall’ ‘, which he later told me was where they just told him what the test answers were.
I knew 2 or 3, and I’d say that your characterization was the “rule” even though I knew an exception. He was doing a MechE degree while starting at a B1G school. I think he had some deals worked out with professors for flexibility with deadlines and the like, but he certainly wasn’t having the answers given to him.
That may be a real degree where it’s dangerous to churn out someone who faked his way through class. Haha. Can you imagine?
Wondering if anyone has ever gone for this degree expecting to have something useful at the end?
College football is ridiculous too. Has nothing whatsoever to do with college and none of those people should even be in college.
You mean let the NFL build an actual minor league system? That’s crazy, it can’t work, you’re a madman with delusions of minor league sports being successful!
/sweeps baseball under the rug
I wish there was a way to do that and still keep the traditions for the people who love college football. But I do find the whole thing ridiculous. It’s like a store that sells lingerie and tires. These two products have nothing to do with one another these days and the coupling is odd.
a store that sells lingerie and tires
*Googles*
Underserved niche. Market opportunity!
You can set up next to Quaker Steak and Lube.
Ah… overpriced mediocre wings. Although it was decent when it was the start/end point of a charity ride (65 miles) that I did a couple of times. Of course, at that point, anything pretty much tastes good.
Nothing to do with each other?
I thought they both had to deal with belts (steel or otherwise), rubber and spare tires.
There’s a place in Houston that sells carpets and tropical fish.
Tell me its “Carp and Carpet.”
I wouldn’t say none – I had a class with Ronde Barber at UVA and he’s a pretty smart guy.
You are right that the majority of players would not be admitted to the schools they play for if it weren’t for football.
I was exaggerating really. I’m sure there are quite a few smart football players.
Harold Lloyd’s The Freshman (1925)
“Tate University – a large football stadium, with a college attached.”
Wagstaff: (Cracking walnuts with the telephone.) And I say to you gentlemen, this college is a failure. The trouble is, we’re neglecting football for education.
Both professors: Exactly. The professor is right.
Wagstaff: Oh, I’m right am I? Well, I’m not right. I’m wrong. I just said that to test you. Now I know where I’m at. I’m dealing with a couple of snakes. What I meant to say was that there’s too much football and not enough education.
Both professors: That’s what I think.
Wagstaff: Oh, you do, do you? Well you’re wrong again! If there was a snake here, I’d apologize. Where would this college be without football? Have we got a stadium?
Professor One: Yes.
Wagstaff: Have we got a college?
Professor One: Yes.
Wagstaff: Well, we can’t support both. Tomorrow we start tearing down the college.
Both professors: But professor! Where will the students sleep?
Wagstaff: Where they always sleep. In the classroom.
My freshman fall, I was in multivariable calculus with Jay Fiedler.
It’s probably not that big of a financial hit all in all, and saves money on the other sports. Other than a handful of schools, and even then with questionable accounting that would make Madoff queasy, athletics programs are net losers in the best of times.
*there is no scenario where it would be sports as usual this fall. Running football and other sports would have increased costs and decreased revenue in any likely option and that’s before the risk mitigation.
I don’t know the current numbers.
When I was at Penn State, the football program subsidized the rest of the athletic department. Take football out, and the athletic department loses lots of money.
Given the staff are still getting paid and the buildings still need maintenance, they’re probably taking a big hit even given the rest of sports are probably also cancelled (OK, maybe they’re not, I haven’t paid attention since I don’t follow sports).
Club sports (at the time, rugby was a club sport) aren’t under the athletic department. I have no idea, even for when I was there, how those sports do with money.
Generally, the revenue sports are Football and men’s basketball. Everything else loses money. Most schools give a stipend to the athletic department, but some ADs run in the black. By and large, the stipend funds expensive sports that nobody watches, so the revenue neutral athletic departments tend have fewer intercollegiate sports.
And when they are successful, the surplus is usually blown flying entire marching bands and who knows how many college big wigs to watch a bowl game.
But yeah, Football and Basketball pull in all the revenue and then have to pay for the Women’s Crew Team. And listen to the Women’s Crew Team bitch because they didn’t get a fancy new boat house built for them.
Even basketball is a loser at a lot of schools. Even successful programs usually only generate a small bit of profit, outside of a tiny number of blue-bloods like Kentucky and Duke.
I mean, they’re net losers because of Title IX. There might be a handful of women’s basketball programs that operate in the black. Football and mens basketball pay the bills. Baseball can break even in a lot of places.
It’s tricky to quantify. What’s the difference between Duke and Rice? Basically 2,000 students at an additional 8,000 bucks in tuition. That’s an additional 16 million dollars. How much of that 16 million dollars is due to the basketball team? Probably a good chunk.
It’s not just Title IX, though those sports don’t help. Again, other than at a few schools, they’re net losers. Take those supposed money maker departments or even if somehow they shrunk down to just football, and start peeling back the onion of accounting tricks like unreimbursed expenses or less than fully allocated costs, and the numbers are a lot less rosy.
College sports is a racket designed to make coaches and administrators money and gain prestige.
Yes. A lot of D-I football programs are money losers too. Generally only major conference programs are money makers.
Local Pac
1012 school makes a big deal of their revenue neutral athletics. Gadfly professor has been on them for years documenting (and pulling teeth to get those supposedly public documents) what an absolute sham it is.Well, again, you have to try to quantify how much money the schools get from college sports in donations and in added enrollment over expectation, to get the whole picture. Not just direct donations to the AD, but rich alumni sitting in the skybox at the Sugar Bowl, and buying a new science lab because they are loving winning a national championship. Then the second order affects where you get a large chunk of voters to vote in favor of increased public funding of an institution.
Basically, is Phil Knight still writing giant checks to Oregon without the football team? Or would he write smaller checks, but since theres no football team to be sugar daddy for, the money is being spent more efficiently? Or would he be spending some of his money elsewhere?
It’s a thorny question. Athletics are a major way, perhaps the major way, that universities maintain alumni connections in the way that really matters: getting donations.
It’s an impossible question to actually answer. Even this year, the drop in giving can be blamed on the COVIDnomic downturn, not on canceling football, but it’s probably some of both.
Conclusively, hard to prove. However at least one analysis showing a neutral to negative correlation with athletic donations.
https://business.nmsu.edu/~mhyman/M454_Articles/(Collegiate)%20Stinson_SMQ_2004.pdf
“Fewer than 2% of alumni contribute to their
alma mater’s athletics program; the majority
instead focused their giving on their school’s academic programs. Non-alumni, on the other hand,
donated almost exclusively to the intercollegiate
athletic program.”
Right so the two points that raises to me are
1. In the absence of any athletics, how many alumni would lose or lessen the habit of donation? How many alumni remain connected to the identity of the institution in part due to something like Homecoming weekend. Even if he spends the football game connecting with old friends and not watching the game, that event is a touch-point that drives his giving. Even a simple thing like buying a sweatshirt or cap at the bookstore bolsters that tribal feeling. I mean, I didn’t even graduate from college, but is their anything better than homecoming weekend on campus? When it’s crisp enough to put the coeds in leggings, but not so cold that they’re in coats? When the smoke of a hundred grills wafts the sizzle of meat through autumn foliage? Cold beer tastes just like it did when you were 20 and your son walking over from his dorm to join you for the tailgate. You take all that away, does the money start drying up?
2. The non alumni, commonly called boosters, are the ones funding the football team. Without a football team, yes their money walks, but since they don’t give to academics, no harm right? Well, I would argue that when you’re selling a particular college to students, the athletics matter more than they should. The college business model, plainly speaking, is tricking as many teenagers as possible into directing their student loans into your coffers. College sports helps a lot with that. It’s part of what you’re selling to prospective students. Like, one of the main reasons urban campuses don’t see big time football or big time Greek life is because cities have more interesting things to do. In a traditional college town environment, football and Greek life are what you need to sell the school to students.
It’s actually amazing to me. Not even giving it a shot for a group of people more at risk from the flu. It’s fucking amazing.
We’ve become a nation of pussy, pulsating pussies.
I think they should just shift everything to 14 weeks in the spring.
But that’s when COVID wave #5 is gonna hit.
Let the boys play.
College football players have organized to launch a “We Want To Play” campaign, to urge their universities not to shut down the 2020 football season.
As colleges continue to hedge over reopening in the face of continued coronavirus troubles, many student athletes are beginning to worry that their 2020 season will be scotched because of the virus.
According to ESPN, the college Power Five conference held an “emergency meeting” on Sunday to discuss their concerns about the virus. And the Big Ten also met over the weekend to discuss “pulling the plug” on the 2020 season.
Insider reports on Monday are claiming that the Big Ten and Pac-12 are leaning toward canceling the 2020 season and may pull the trigger as soon as Tuesday.
With these omens prophesying the cancellation of the season, Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence and a group of college athletes have launched an effort to convince colleges not to give in to the hand wringing over the virus.
A “townie” was someone who believed in the inherent superiority of those who dwelled in town, as opposed to those of us who happily lived on farms or out in the woods. – I was always under the impression that a townie was someone who lived in a college town but did not go to the college but was trying to get into college parties and fuck college girls and whatnot
When you are in college, that’s the definition of a townie.
I think I first heard the term in Rules of Attraction
What? You want to grab a quesadilla?
Also, SAVAGE!
the book was better than the movie 🙂
Nobody has ever seen Breaking Away?
Academy award winner.
And the military
The age old town vs gown.
I’ve only heard “townie” used in relation to those 35 year old local guys trying to get laid at the college bars.
I’ve tried this a couple of times in links, but as usual with links, I show up too late and the thread is dead.
Just wondering if any of you have written a eulogy for Tulsi’s tits?
Did he die? Or we not talking about Tulsi Gabbard Appologist?
why the hell are we talking about TGA’s tits?
Idk. But I’m more of an ass-man.
You’d have to ask the fake Hyperbole.
Man, you guys are slipping. Tulsi Gabbard lost her election, fer crikey sake, No we ain’t gonna be seeing much more of her tits. Because during the dem primaries, it seemed to be a very popular topic around here.
https://thepostmillennial.com/seattle-police-chiefs-salary-cut-to-100k-less-than-her-white-predecessor
Huh.
Oof. Them’s some bad optics.
$100,000 LESS? She better be making $1.98 now.
I think she should get a raise after the way she protected that city. It’s just pristine now.
Also, I thought we were DEFUNDING the police, not just cutting budgets. RIGHT WING SEATTLE WON’T DEFUND POLICE BECUZ THEIR RACIST!
the name of that site still bothers me for some reason…
I, for one, look forward to the post-millenials.
They’re all gonna be Alex P. Keaton Republicans. It’s gonna be glorious.
Ahhh, I remember dreams of Justine Bateman and Tracy Pollan.
I was reading somewhere that the show was setup to mock Reagan and 80’s shallowness (i.e., the “mall rat” character of Mallory) and that Milton-Friedman disciple Alex P. Keaton was supposed to be a villain.
But Alex P. Keaton wound up being the most popular and liked character thanks to the charming Michael J. Fox and audiences weren’t disgusted by his politics at all.
lol Hollywood.
All in the Family redux.
Ah, shades of Norman Lear’s dismay when his designated antagonist, Archie Bunker, became the most popular character on All In the Family.
Damn your quick fingers, Gustave!
Interesting anecdote. My post-millennial kids and their friends are intensely interested in the stock market, and are already actively investing and trading.
Unintended consequences. Stop voting for democrats, idiots, your rioting and looting ain’t working.
Science!
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/evidence-is-growing-but-what-will-it-take-to-prove-masks-slow-the-spread-of-covid-19/
Not Science!
https://www.henryford.com/news/2020/07/hydro-treatment-study
An anesthesiologist speaking at the Plymouth, NH anti-mask rally a week or two ago about masks. Audio starts out pretty shitty but gets better.
The masked guy with the mic boom near the gazebo is an NHPR reporter. Exactly zero of what the anesthesiologist said made it into the article on the anti-mask rally.
Interesting article. Picking through it, one finds a lot of caveats and qualifiers.
I take 100 years of research on the effectiveness (or not) of face masks over the hysterical “analysis” in the last six months.
They cite the Georgia camp with no precautions and two-hundred some kids and adults got infected. Results – some got fevers and sore throats.
Why are we trying to “slow the spread”? Especially among those under 50.
At the time we thought they all looked like this.
Wait. You mean not all Norwegian women look like that? Shit.
Great story!
One of the great fun calls of IT work. Getting two vendors on the phone and letting them fight out what side is having an issue (the issue is only for one user out of hundreds, so if I had to guess, it’s an issue on the application DB side).
When we get those in the air traffic world, the problem usually resides between the screen and the chair in most instances.
PEBCAK
The One Delta Ten Tango problem?
I don’t know what that is but I have had people ask me where is the O – F – F button…
I would think that if it wasn’t an automated process that was failing for one single user, but working for all the other users. So it’s something on the process side.
As an old radar technician, I will agree with anything that puts the blame on controllers.
Tower flowers are worse than trolls, this is known.
^THIS^
Fucking controllers….
Ah, yes, I knew a navaids man would understand.
Hah hah
https://twitter.com/rothbard2020/status/1292611245204541440?s=21
My dragon bowl arrived today. Despite Pan Fried Wilie’s prediction, it is, in fact, Made in Japan.
That’s pretty!
“Trump calls them terrorists, anarchists who “hate our country.” He’s said the city is “worse than Afghanistan.”
But they wear GOP insults as badges of honor in this city. Teachers, moms and elected leaders say sure, they’re antifa. Welcome to #Portland”
https://twitter.com/Marissa_Jae/status/1292565029791899650
CWAA
And just like New York, it will be, “Whycome everybody move out?”
Oh, cute, a gauzy puff piece about rioters. Democracy dies in darkness….or something
TMITE
I have no idea what you’re saying when you post that.
Hell, I’m still out of the loop on CWAA…
Christ what an asshole
The media is the enemy/alternatively too much idiocy to explain
Know your
memeshibboleth. Also, fried chicken.Ten Midgets Implicate Tiny Eagles
(The media is the enemy)
OT (Sorry, Animal – no time to read post): Today is definitely a SiriusXM Spa Channel (AKA the Keep-Me-Calm-Enough-to-Curb-the-Compulsion-to-Kill-my-Coworkers Channel) kind of day.
*Spa Channel fist bump*
That would have the complete opposite effect on me.
Oh no… not the Carpenters too!
Chicoms aren’t missing an opportunity to reinforce they are asshoe
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-53717843
Ah, country boys vs citified kids. An old tale indeed!
As a chick, I did some farm boy chores but never got into a physical fight. “Ladies don’t fight.” Of course, I imagine few ladies put up barbed wire fences and run trot lines either.
My spouse was not a country boy but had taken and given punches through his long career as bartender/ bouncer. Mostly he didn’t throw punches, but would Instead physically wrap up his victim and squeeze until they gave up or lost consciousness. Easier to move them where you want them then too.
I knew the UK girls getting raped by “Asians” had to be from broken families. Otherwise this would have happened to all of them.
He got off kind of easy. I think the woman yelling at him inflicted more pain.
Cuomo is asshole.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday said “you’d have to be blind” to think calls to further calls to investigate the coronavirus deaths linked to state nursing homes amid the pandemic are “not political.”
Cuomo, during a press conference Monday, said he “wouldn’t do an investigation” into the nursing home deaths during the coronavirus pandemic in the state of New York.
“I wouldn’t do an investigation whether or not it’s political, everybody can make that decision for themselves,” Cuomo said. “I think you’d have to be blind to realize it’s not political.”
He went on to say, “Just look at where it comes from and look at the sources and look at their political affiliations and look at who wrote the letter in Congress and look at what publications raise it and what media outward networks raise it.”
#Cuomovirus
He’s not even gonna do the whole “I am appointing a blue ribbon panel of Respected (Democrat) Politicians, Top (Democrat) Experts in Science, and A Few Highly Experienced (Democrat) Lawyers to do a Thorough, Impartial, and Professional Investigation.” thing?
Chutzpah.
Haha. Yes.
The other party has a political reason for pointing out your failures. Otherwise, no one would ever point out your failures. This is how it works.
He already did that, and they claimed that 25% of care home workers had coronavirus by June. Somehow, the disease going through that one profession that fast didn’t make national headlines.
I mean so what if it’s political?
So he would be unopposed if an independent investigation were to do it then?
I wouldn’t do an investigation whether or not it’s political
There will be no investigation. Period. Full stop. Nice little business you got there. Shame if something were to happen to it.
“If you want to run for Prime Minister, you can. If you don’t, that’s wonderful, too. Shave your armpits, don’t shave them, wear flats one day, heels the next; We want to empower women to do exactly what they want.” – Emma Watson
https://twitter.com/TheWomensOrg/status/1292370163531120642
there is not one positive comment to this from any side of the issue
Hermoine Granger is such a nerd.
Vapid
But cute
She’s in that special category of Ivy League educated ignoramuses.
Some fantasies are ruined for me if she does not shave.
Oh, I dunno.
Year round would be easier.
You got to bury your nuts for the winter.
Scanning thru before reading context, I thought this was you making that comment.
This has been a developing story in Virginia. The courts went nuts indiscriminately letting people out over the last couple of months due to COVID.
So we can chalk her death up to Covid-19 too.
Yes, and what choice did we have but to let the guy out, he could have got the commie flu also, and it’s not like we could have let pot fiends out or anything.
And nothing else happened.
Whycome we have a crime spike in 2019?
2020 damnit.
If we didn’t have a calendar, i wouldn’t have this problem.
But then we wouldn’t have Calendar Girls. And I love my little Calendar girl.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qUlOyj9F5gM
I need a ruling from our Canuckistanis.
Out about town with the Mrs. this afternoon, stopped at a local butcher who recently expanded. Now they serve prepared food in addition to supplying pricey game. So I am checking out the menu and notice something unexpected…
Me: Poutine??? In NJ???
Wife: WTF is poutine?
Me: Cheese curds, right there on the menu. A Canadian delicacy.
So, my question is, what are the chances the short rib thing on this menu is authentic poutine?
https://westwoodprimemeats.com/eats-menu.html
All the Canadians here are fake.
Just like the women, huh, Tulpa?
My creperie offers short rib on their poutine, and it was started by a hot Quebecoise chick.