Ever notice that Dartmouth has its own version of the NFL draft? Or even a fantasy league draft? No, you say?
The new room draw system is an eerie combination of the two.
Picking a room is like drafting a player, be it fantasy or real life. Sitting in front of your computer, just waiting and hoping that your preferred room remains on the board until it's your pick.
In the NFL draft, everyone gets a number, everyone picks. The later you pick, the less you have to pay your rookie, in general.
Fair system, right? Too bad Dartmouth's online room draw system isn't as judicious. I mean, if someone were to get one of the last 20 picks of their class they wouldn't get to pick higher in the second round, like in most fantasy drafts. It would be even more painful if the year before they had gotten one of the last 100 picks in their class. They also wouldn't be able to pay less for their room even though they picked toward the end.
I'm one example of a victim of this cruel, cruel system.
Last fall, my roommate and I literally had the last pick of the rising sophomores at room draw what's known in football terms as "Mr. Irrelevant." We had great choices, the Lodge or the Lodge. To be honest, I didn't even know the Lodge existed until the end of my first term on campus, and I did not want to live there.
If you sit through the painfully long NFL draft, every few years you'll see a team just simply not pick and wait. It's about the Benjamins every spot lower you draft someone is a couple million less you have to pay them.
Well, I decided to follow that strategy, but clearly not for exactly that reason. I said to my roommate, "You know what? Let's just not pick and let the waitlist deal with us, worst they could do is just give us the Lodge anyway."
In fantasy football terms, we passed on a mediocre starting quarterback, say Ryan Fitzpatrick in Buffalo, and picked up David Garrard, starting QB for Jacksonville in free agency. Arguably equally mediocre, but Garrard plays in a warm weather city.
Translation: I ended up getting a pretty junky room off the waitlist but in a better location Topliff.
I even suffer bad luck abroad when choosing rooms. A couple of weeks before we were supposed to go to Barcelona, my roommate and I recieved pictures of our place. It seemed really nice view of the ocean, couches, TV, etc. But a couple of days before we left, I was sent an email saying our location was changed because someone dropped out of the program.
Okay, I have three descriptions of the new place. First, for the first three weeks of the term we would get into the building through a broken glass window below the door handle think a certain frat's doggy door. Second, I lovingly referred to my home of 10 weeks as "the crack den" because of how sketchy the area was. Third, when my mother saw the new room, she told me that she wished I had never let her see it because her worrying would keep her up at night.
In fantasy football, I can really only equate this to one thing: imagine you drafted Tom Brady in 2008 after he had one of the greatest seasons ever for a quarterback in 2007, only to have him get injured in the first game. Yeah, it was that bad.
All of this now brings me to 3479 the 21st worst number in the sophomore class. It also happens to be my number.
On Wednesday, I watched as the Chris Johnsons of Dartmouth dorms went off the board New Hamp, Mid Mass, the Fayers and realized that the renewal of the vacancy list really does mimic a draft board.
I was positive I would get a room somewhere, but the question was where. Would I be locked into the Marcus Vick the younger brother of Michael Vick (read: New Hamp) who never made it into the NFL or would I get the Matt Cassel a player who won't get you a lot of points but is just good enough to be on your team? The problem with that, though, is you are not winning too many games with Cassel as your QB.
So how does my saga end? Despite my bad luck, the final result wasn't as bad as any of my abysmal fantasy teams. It was still rough though. But hey, its not the Lodge.