Now, the last time I wrote a Dartmouth football-related article, I boldly predicted a win for the Big Green, only to be let down by the team. Not only was this slightly embarrassing, but I think the poor prediction may have also greatly hurt my credibility.
I say this only because last week I proposed a great solution to our Greek rush system, which was to have Greek Rush Fantasy Draft Day, and so far a grand total of zero administrators have contacted me about how to best go about implementing this. I can only assume this is because my credibility is low due to prior erroneous predictions.
So, unfortunately, unless somehow the Big Green miraculously finds its own Bobby Boucher before Saturday's game, I can't predict another big W.'
That's not to say, however, that I don't think Dartmouth still has a good chance of winning. Columbia is always a potentially beatable team, the Big Green has clearly improved since last year, and there is going to be a big crowd.
Although, I don't know why it isn't going to be a night game. Think about how many more people would go to a night game. You could probably fill the entire stadium, the students would be a lot more, um, rowdy, and the whole experience would be great for school spirit. Plus, it's not that expensive my public high school rented lights for games once a year, so I'm sure Dartmouth could afford it. Seriously, anyone reading this who disagrees, go watch "Remember the Titans" and try honestly telling me night games wouldn't be great for a small school like Dartmouth.
Speaking of "Remember the Titans," as dumb as this sounds, I think we all could learn a little about football from that movie. Throughout much of the film, many of the people in the town are against the coach and want him fired. The coach, however, basically takes an "eff you" stance toward everyone who is against him and continues going about his business and coaches the Titans to a state championship. That "eff you" attitude is the attitude I think we need to have as a school during the football game this weekend.
Before I get more into why, here are a couple more examples of what I mean by taking the "eff you" stance. Russell Crowe has it in "Gladiator," when he's forced to fight multiple warriors at once, yet mercilessly kills everyone in the ring in about five seconds and then yells at the crowd, "Are you not entertained?"
Or, to provide a Dartmouth example, the weird dude who dances with a lightsaber on the Green every night also has this attitude. Tons of people who walk by him make fun of him, yet he doesn't care, he just basically just says, "Eff you, I don't care what you think, I'm going to keep doing my thing."
Just quickly, does anyone else wonder what this guy's plan is during the bonfire? I, for one, am hoping he's planning on something huge, like emerging from the flames at some point, sun-mask and everything, proving that he is immortal or something like that. I mean, we are building a massive fire where a guy with a sun-mask and a lightsaber dances every single night, I refuse to believe something very spectacular isn't going to happen.
But anyway, back to football. I think if we all took an "eff you" stance for the Columbia game it could go a long way. We, for once, are going to have a huge crowd, and we should take advantage of it. Any and all anti-Columbia cheers should be encouraged and the Columbia players should constantly be peppered with chants like, "Who's Soft? Columbia. How Soft? Too Soft."
This attitude could apply to players and coaches as well. For the players, why not get incredibly pissed off for the start, maybe even get a couple of unnecessary roughness penalties on the first play of the game? Send Columbia a message early that we aren't just going to roll over and die. This attitude would be especially important if Columbia gets some early momentum. If they score and we all think, "Oh well, here we go again," we really have no shot.
Maybe everyone on the team already has this attitude I shouldn't assume they don't. But I don't think the reason we are losing is because of a huge discrepancy in talent or a lack of preparation there is clearly something else going on. So is it possible that, just for one game, trying to decapitate every single person on the field for every single play might make a difference? I think maybe.
I feel kind of bad citing "Miracle," when talking about a game against Columbia, but oh well. As Herb Brooks said, "If we played 'em 10 times, they might win nine. But not this game. Eff them."
Well he didn't say the "eff them" part, but if it wasn't a Disney movie he probably would have. So for the game tomorrow, even if it's just for this game, everyone on the team, all of the coaches and all of the fans should be thinking, "Screw Columbia, screw the doubters, eff them, we're winning this game."
It might make a difference.
