This could have been the week of the college underdog. After Virginia Commonwealth University and Butler University effectively destroyed everyone's bracket mine included Butler ousted VCU to return to the national championship. Butler was only the third (second, officially) eighth seed in NCAA tournament history to reach the national championship.
It would have been a great story Butler, defeated by the hated Duke Blue Devils a year earlier, returns to take on another juggernaut and wins. But it was not to be, as Butler lost to the University of Connecticut in what must have been one of the most boring games in history.
But that got me thinking: What is the biggest upset story on campus? From real sports to club sports to anything really what is the most improbable sports story?
Because I am far too lazy to actually go through every sport, I'll make some rules to eliminate different portions of the Dartmouth sports arena.
Rule #1: If a member of The Dartmouth sports staff a staff that in the past has covered frisbee (yeah, seriously) has to look a team up on DartmouthSports.com to see how it is doing this season, then its games are not attended enough to be included. I'm sorry, but bye-bye field hockey, basketball, any crew team and every other sport that I am forgetting to mention but let's keep in mind that me forgetting you just makes my point stronger.
Rule #2: If you have the most Ivy League championships in the history of your sport or are perennially at the top of the standings, it is not an upset if you magically win one. Congratulations to football, which actually has 17 championships to lead the League, you are out of the all-important Lentz upset-pool. Yes, while it would be cool for you to go beyond the League and win a national championship at the FCS level, that's like winning a consolation bracket. Come back to me when you beat Auburn.
Rule #3: If it's not a surprise that a Dartmouth sport would be good, then it's not an upset. Primary example: the hockey teams. They should be good it has already snowed twice in April. It reaches -20 degrees in the winter. We are less than a few hours from Canada. It would be no surprise for us to be good at hockey.
Lacrosse is the same story. Both men's and women's play in the League, which is a known powerhouse. Thee 19th-ranked women's lacrosse team actually just had a small upset over 13th-ranked Syracuse. It's not big enough to take the crown, though.
As someone who was just subjected to soccer in Europe for a term, this is really painful for me to say, but at this moment, the men's soccer team is the closest Dartmouth has to a real underdog story. The team made it to the quarterfinals last year against teams like UCLA. If it was to win the national championship, which it was an overtime loss and two games away from, it would be a Dartmouth-style version of Boise State.
Now onto the nonner side of Dartmouth athletics.
Rule #4: Pong is not in the discussion. I am going to avoid talking about Masters altogether the actual championships of Dartmouth College. Primarily because I have not yet been through sophomore Summer, and second, while I am not above making pong references, I refuse to bring myself to Jersey Shore tool level.
Rule #5: Goodbye, club sports. Once again, winning a club championship is like winning a consolation bracket or many other better analogies that I cannot make here see "Waiting" (2005) if you don't know what I am talking about. While there are good club sports teams here, let me get two things straight: if you have your own house and fields, you can't be considered a club team (sorry rugby), and if you just resigned from your league because it was easier to pay high school kids to ref instead of a shelling out a couple hundred to get professionals, you can't be up for an upset either (club lacrosse is out, too).
Rule #6: Intramurals are not being considered. No one really cares that much, and if you do, you are missing the point, entirely.
It seems like nothing is left right? Soccer or baseball seem destined to be the Big Green underdog hope. But wait that's what it is.
The biggest upset on campus is us, the Big Green. Think about it. The name our athletic teams share is also the name of a soccer movie from 1995 that stars Porter from "The Sandlot." It's a color with the word "Big" in front of it. Scary.
Our most legitimate nickname since we rightly changed mascots in 1974 has been Keggy the Keg. While fun, you see my point.
How can we allow this to stand as an institution of higher learning? We are smart, competitive people, yet we share a mascot with the environmental movement.
Oh well, at least we don't have some lame color, like crimson.
