Fear the Beaver

The mascot was a Disneyesque, buck-toothed
beaver (get it, "Nature’s Engineer") that officials now
think looks a little too happy. The new beaver is a pumped-up, fierce-eyed
mascot with the slogan, ”Fear the Engineers.

”We have more varsity sports than any other school in the NCAA —
Division 1, 2 or 3,” says
MIT’s
assistant
athletics
director,
John Benedick. ”We get no respect. People just think we’re a bunch
of geeks."

I never thought they were a bunch of geeks.  Back in the day MIT
urdergrads were known for their raucous nitrous oxide parties, and I used
to get the good Jamacian from the 2nd seat in the MIT varsity heavy eights,
and followed their crew for a while.  They were good. I also always had
the impression MIT excelled at fencing and lacross.  Not to mention
chess, in which they probably rule.

And don’t even get me started on football.  Four years ago the
President of the University where I work DISBANDED our football team,
ONE YEAR after they had won the NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP in division 3!  His
excuse was that the violence of American Football was "inconsistent
with the academic purpose of the institution!" For Christ’s Sake, John,
get a grip.  MIT has a FINE football team. They haven’t won a
game since 1987, but they are out there competing, and that’s what
counts.

In fact, MIT claims to have 42 varsity sports, one more than even Harvard.  Of
course, Harvard scoffed snootily, "Hearing that MIT was claiming 42 varsity
teams, officials at Harvard, which has 41, chafed. They point to MIT’s
varsity pistol and rifle teams as evidence of MIT’s skewed vision of varsity
sports."

Hey, wait a minute! I was ON the Harvard Rifle Team in 1973! The team capitan,
a member of my "freak fraternity" and now owner of a software company in
Houston, had the key to the Harvard rifle range and we would go down there
in the wee hours under the effects of whatnot and invent weird games like
hanging tootsie roll pops from shoelaces tied to the mechanized target holders.  When
we rolled ’em back down the range, the lollypops swung around wildly and
were wicked hard to hit.  Or even see, for that matter.

We lost all 12 matches that season. Most of the guys we were shooting against were steely-eyed vets with thousand-yard stares just back form Nam and trying to finish college on Uncle Sam, while we were just a bunch of Ivy freaks who liked to play with guns. But I got my Harvard varsity letter
sweater out of the deal. So enough with the snide "skewed vision" comments.  If
it’s good enough for the olympics, it should be good enough for Harvard.
And a hearty Beaver Cheer for the Angry Engineers at MIT.

article from the Boston Globe