Misguided Fan(atic)s

(If you don't know about the events that occured during the Minuteman event at Columbia, here is the background article: Protestors Rush Minutemen)

Misguided Fan(atic)s

Whenever Ohio State football beats Michigan, students storm the field. Whenever Maryland basketball beats Duke, students storm the court. Whenever liberal Columbia students don’t like a conservative speaker, they storm the stage. Clearly, Columbia needs a better athletics program.

It is a common misconception that Columbia students don’t like sports. In reality, we hate sports for the same reason that France hates war – we never win. Since we can’t rely on our sports teams as a means to channel our pent up aggression, we turn elsewhere. Since we can’t go ape-shit in the bleachers of Baker Field, we go ape-shit in the seats of Roone Alredge instead.

Everyone needs something to fight for, or against: The PLO has Israel, the Earth Liberation Front has SUVs, Georgia Tech has Georgia, and Columbia students have…conservatives. As a whole, we hate conservatives with the wrath of a thousand suns; if truth be told, it’s probably only a matter of time before the College Democrats declare a veritable jihad on them.

Now, I do not use the term jihad flippantly. We are, in fact, singularly driven by our hate of conservatives. We hate them so much so that we object to them in all shapes and forms, even if it might make us hypocrites. Case in point: Last week, we protested the conservatives who limited the free speech of the hockey team. But this week, the audience in Roone Alredge infringed upon that very same ideal of free speech, simply because that speech was coming from a conservative. We have become unabashed, fundamentalist liberals.

Which is exactly why we need better sports. The sole area where fundamentalism is permitted, even encouraged, is in sports. I am a Mets fan for absolutely no good reason. I have no logic behind my loyalty, and I have no qualifications for it, either. I do not believe in athletic pluralism; I believe that the Mets are clearly the Chosen team, possessing more inherent worth than any other team. And this is perfectly acceptable.

The problem, or reality, is that we each possess a need to unequivocally believe in something. We each need some sort of cause around which we can rally. However, politics is no place for unequivocal belief; it is a place for objective dialogue. Unfortunately this objectivity is obscured by all of the bottled up aggression we incur when Columbia can’t kick an extra point or penetrate a 3-2 defense for the easy lay-up.

Maybe if we had these things on Baker Field or Levien Gym, we could be levelheaded in the political arena. Maybe we’d become more conservative; maybe we’d become more liberal. It really doesn’t matter. All that matters is that at least we wouldn’t be compared to the “bleacher creatures” of Yankee Stadium.