Thursday, July 17, 2008

From the Archives: Fans Like You

No creative juices flowing today, and just a teeny bit tired. So I'm throwing one at you from the Archives of The BearDown. Originally posted Thursday, November 15, 2007. Enjoy.

Sorry, work was slow and I decided (after some reading) a rant was in order.

To you Jacob Levine, English Major (my guess is you are a 5th year senior) shame on you and your whole family (of course there is the slight chance you still live with your parents).

Quoted in today's Arizona Daily Wildcat:

Jacob Levine, a senior majoring in English and creative writing, had his Thursday night poetry class cancelled due to parking issues."I'm upset because the priorities of the administration are on the football game, and I didn't go to college to be a football fan," Levine said. "I came to be a student."

Mancheck 1
First off, last time I checked missing class was a good thing. It was one of the best things in my undergrad. And to continue on this, Poetry Class? Really, I feel like I know you based solely on your statement. I will preface this by saying I do not know Mr(s). Levine, I have never met him, and my statements/assumptions are based solely on his statement. You most likely live with your parents, are in your 5th year of college, and are definately going to grad school because you don't know what you want to do when you grow up but you used to get B+'s in High School English. Of course the funny thing is the amount of money you spend getting this higher education in English and creative writing will most likely leave you sitting in the cubicle next to me (or someone like me) face it once you get into the real world, your college major or grad school hardly matters. Trust me, I know.

Mancheck 2
Priorities? The schools priorities lie in the bettering of student life and programs. Guess where money comes in to the school from. (O M G he ended a sentence with a preposition) You guessed right (non) sports fan, from the sports teams, especially say on a huge Thursday night Pac 10 game vs. the #2 team in the country, perhaps. I don't recall Ralph Waldo Emerson or Walt Whitman doing much for this or any other university for that matter. And you didn't come to college to be a student. You are an english major. Go grab your frisbee and play some ultimate. Being a student is not just grades and bad union food it's the traditions, the bars, the sports, homecoming, march madness, painting your face and/or body, not haikus and couplets.

Mancheck 3
Sports > Poetry

It is at this point I should apologize to Mr. Levine, since I have never met him and he (hopefully) was misquoted and I am wrong....I strongly doubt it though. But this was not aimed directly at him but rather everything he and people like him stand for, unfortunately for him, he gave them a name and an identity to attack. This is what's wrong with U of A football, the quantity of people like Jacob Levine. In Florida you can't get a ticket on gameday at the box office. In Tucson you can get one after kickoff from the box office (60% of the time). This lackadaisical approach to sports by some of the students is the problem. If you didn't want to come to college to be a football fan then why did you come to a Pac-10 school, there are plenty of schools out there who don't even have a football team, and all the dirty poetry reading people just like you are out there too. Stop taking up space on the mall playing Frisbee and hackysack, cut your dreads and leave my school. Only true fans need apply.

Dom graduated in 4 years from the University of Arizona with a B.A. in History Education. You can read him daily/bi-daily on TheBearDown and his book Untitled will be hitting the stores as soon as it is written, published, and printed.

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