Nearly 80,000 rabid fans packed the Superdome in New Orleans on New Year's Day to participate in an American tradition as genuine as apple pie, rock and roll or capitalism: a college football bowl game. The Nokia Sugar Bowl pregame festivities included a grandiose, if not stirring, rendition of the national anthem played by the 1970s rock band Boston, replete with fireworks and an American flag that covered the entire expanse of the field.
The halftime show was an equally gaudy spectacle, featuring, among other things, a man riding a giant fire-breathing dragon. The fans maintained their deafening enthusiasm throughout the contest, and that excitement undoubtedly spilled out into the streets of New Orleans following the game (in which -- wouldn't you know it -- the home team, LSU, beat up on Illinois).
Would it be too much to ask that same unbridled enthusiasm of students here at Dartmouth?
Admittedly, there might not even be 80,000 people in the state of New Hampshire, but we're looking for quality, not quantity. While it may be a severe statistical improbability (somewhere in the neighborhood of zero) that Dartmouth will be playing in a BCS bowl -- at least while the team remains in the doldrums of Division I-AA -- there is at least some consolation in the fact that the Dartmouth marching band, while no prize-winner itself, is far superior to Boston.
Division I-A college football teams are better than Ivy League ones in terms of the quality of their players and the resources of their programs. With a few notable exceptions, Dartmouth is not producing NFL players. But on some level, that makes Ivy League football better. Our athletes are not riding around in SUVs donated by boosters, nor are they more concerned with how high they'll be drafted than whether or not they'll graduate. Football here at Dartmouth is about competition and having fun; it is pure, unmuddied by the exterior, often invasively commercial, influences that are so prominent in upper-echelon college football (e.g. the "Nokia" Sugar Bowl).
With that in mind, it is incumbent upon us as students of a college like Dartmouth to support our athletic teams with the same zeal that the students of LSU and Illinois exhibited at the Sugar Bowl. In fact, we should be even more eager and willing to come in droves to Dartmouth athletic contests than students at large, state universities. Our college is a small, tight-knit community. Our athletes are not larger-than-life figures we see on TV; they are our classmates and friends.
Why then, do we attend their games so inconsistently and with such little enthusiasm?
Supporting the school's athletic teams is as much an integral part of the college experience as learning or having fun. With that in mind, we should not need to be prodded into being supportive. For the most part, we have an excellent and accessible athletic program here at Dartmouth, and some very talented athletes. This winter, we have the privilege of watching two nationally prominent hockey teams -- whose games are free, while some reports had Sugar Bowl tickets going for upwards of $500 -- as well as a slew of other exciting teams.
And who knows? Maybe in a few years we could even have our own bowl game.
How does the Enron Dartmouth Bowl sound?
