This, faithful readers, will be our last battlefield update of the fall season. For those of you who have stuck it out with us thus far, only to have your hearts broken as the good guys (our story, so we are the good guys) drop so many (sort of) close ones, we appreciate your love and support.
We promise that in the winter season, we will avenge you. We know we have to dig deeper, get off the elliptical and onto the treadmill, stop doing only bicep curls when pretty girls are around and, most importantly, avoid scheduling people who are so good at what they do. We are clearing out all the things in our lives that don’t matter (appearances, friends, social lives, etc.) and focusing on what does (skiing), and this column too. It’s going to be winter in Hanover and all bets are off.
Yes, readers, the tilts tilted away from us, but we learned a lot this time around. We learned that, despite what recently retired franchise player Allen Iverson says, practice might be important. For those of you who know a Dartmouth athlete or really just heard them speak for more than five minutes, you know they practice a lot and it is hard stuff. I know that this may come as a surprise to most of you, but Freddie and I really just kind of winged it. Next term, we swear to at least watch a YouTube video on how to play the sport we are attempting. Alright, we swear to consider watching a video on it.
More importantly though, readers, we have learned things from our professional counterparts, important things that we completely missed before and need to be incorporated immediately if we ever hope to win. The first of these is obvious, that we need way better celebrations (hence forth to be known as the cele).
That’s right, the cele is the most important part of any goal in an athletic competition. Scoring is cool (we have heard) but it means absolutely nothing if you can not patronize your opponent. We learned that our comparative advantage (hear that econ professors, we were paying attention) is not necessarily in the brawn of these competitions. It might not necessarily be in the brains either, but we would assume it has to be. Mainly because that’s the default option because it is definitely not in the brawn. Regardless, we are going to be putting our heads together in the offseason to think of what we want to portray through our artistic celebrations. Do we want them to be tasteful, like Johnny Manziel’s money grub post-clear and obvious NCAA violation? Do we want them to be symbolic like Chad Whateverhislastnameisnow’s Hall of Fame jacket grab? Or do we want them to make us a lot of money, like Aaron Rodgers’ discount double check?
We also realized that in order to take our game to the next level, we need some kind of scandal. Right now, we are thinking steroids. Apparently, you can get them on the internet and they make you jacked without any effort. We are into results with no meaningful effort. All the baseball greats have had scandals and we could use a tour of Capitol Hill. Because while the economy is doing great and we are fighting in a few wars and there is some scary stuff going on in Syria, baseball is important. And we are glad the government gets that. While Freddie is out for this one, I am also hoping for some kind of scandal involving a super model. Not to the tune of Tiger Woods, but maybe like a Derek Jeter type deal. Tasteful, but with some shock value. Who knows, maybe a few supermodels. That really has nothing to do with this column, I’m just really pulling for it and so should you.
Finally, faithful readers, we realized that there is one thing that we are missing that you all can help with. We need haters. Everyone has their haters. LeBron has the city of Cleveland, Kobe has people who like to pass and the New York Yankees have pretty much everyone who is not from New York. We need someone. We have been obnoxious, self-righteous, egregious and condescending. We even tried our hand at a campus dialogue and no one got involved. We need the hate. Gronk is Tom Brady’s only target, LeBron just won a Championship, Kobe still puts up double doubles every night, and the Yankees are still one of the best teams money can buy. But you get the point. These guys thrive off the haters and we need it too. So comment on these columns, tell us how awful we are as athletes and people.
Anyway, have a great off-season, enjoy the time with your friends and family, and know that when we pick it back up in 2014, we will do our best to keep it warm in the cold Hanover winter.
