It was a special night. For one night, and one night only, the too-tight pants of hipsters would be replaced by the too-tight pants of football players. A student body that treasures its apathy and ironic detachment would embrace an American pastime with corny whole-heartedness. Under the glare of the Saturday night lights, the Brown football team would get the sort of support its counterparts at state schools regularly enjoy.
Why?
I should tell you right off the bat that I have less than no interest in, or knowledge of, football. I had never been to a single Brown sporting event and I don't feel like I've missed out. Yet thanks to the magical combination of boredom and peer pressure, I found myself sitting on uncomfortable aluminum benches waiting for something to happen, or on my feet, clapping and cheering wildly for some play that I hadn't seen or couldn't understand. And I kind of enjoyed it.
Yes, I was concerned about giving in to the mob mentality, but in a school as resolutely non-competitive as Brown, there's some release that comes with yelling "Harvard sucks!" in unison with thousands of other voices. For me, at least, this was the most mindless type of entertainment possible — not even forming my own reactions to what was happening on the field, but watching everyone else and allowing my emotions to be borne along by theirs.
Of course, for the football players, it was anything but mindless, and no doubt that was also the case for the development officers, biting their nails that Brown would win and the donations would come pouring in. But for the literally thousands of fans, students and alumni sitting in the stands, this was a rare chance to express our love for Brown without complications or judgment.
Not that there was anything organic about the sudden infusion of school spirit; rather, it was the product of a shrewd and ubiquitous marketing campaign that touted the historical nature of the first ever game "under the lights." And for many (myself included), it was more about the social experience than love of the game.
But when my professor asked a class of 20 how many of us had attended the game and all but three raised their hands, I couldn't help but be impressed. What other event (barring Spring Weekend, which is also not exactly about the performances) can you recall that drew such a large and diverse cross-section of the student body?
Maybe it turns out we're not as ironically detached as we thought. Maybe we enjoy the cheering and chanting and pretending to know the words to the fight song. Maybe we want to recapture that feeling that we only get at Convocation and Commencement, where we're not pre-med students or ethnic studies students or math students or (shudder) MCM students, but just Brown students.
Sports are a powerful unifier, there's no doubt about it. So should we become like those sports-obsessed state schools, just because for one night a lot of students acted like they were interested in football?
Anyone who spends five minutes at Brown can tell that this is a school where people are more frequently condescended to than worshipped for their physical gifts. Athletes, especially football players, tend to get stereotyped as not overly concerned with academics. Some are brilliant scholar-athletes; some have been accepted to Brown because they possess a different sort of intelligence than the type professors value.
But this isn't confined to athletes at all. Someone with less than glowing teacher recommendations may be accepted because the orchestra needs a tuba player; someone else who stood out to the admissions committee for his stellar community service record may have comparatively low SAT scores. And of course, someone who had abysmal grades and rich parents is welcome here, because how do you think we pay to be continually Building Brown?
Sports-obsessed is bad, because any type of imbalance is bad, but sports-hostile is no better. I could end with some cheesy message about how the football game teaches us that we're all unique tiles who together form the beautiful mosaic that is Brown, but I suspect that a lot of you engaged in some heavy drinking last night at Fish Co. and I don't want to make you sick. So instead, I will just say that I love my college dear, and it's not so bad to be able to show it once in a while.
Former Herald Opinions Editor Sarah Rosenthal '11 didn't get a picture with Ruth and so is never going to a football game again.
