A Tale of Two Kyles

On October 10, the Brown Brown Bears squared off against the Holy Cross Crusaders. This contest of Blue Blood industrial scions versus Well-Heeled ethnic whites, of New England secularism versus Thin Gruel Yankee Catholicism, is difficult to dramatize. But this is the Internet, and you are reading an amateur blog tangentially related to college football. So, dramatize we must.

In that vein, we must not neglect to mention that Holy Cross is a Jesuit college, and that the Jesuits were historically known for their knavery on behalf of the famously illiberal Catholic papacy. We must also note that in spite of a century of intellectual incoherence and structuralist casuistry, Holy Cross football still goes by the name "Crusaders." Finally, we have to say that however unimaginative we may find the name Brown Bears to be, it does form a kind of a barely noticeable, mildly amusing pun. Far preferable would be the Brown Brown Bears, which has an alliterative ring to it that is as unnecessary as its semantic content would be entirely redundant. "Brown Bears" is good. "Brown Brown Bears" would be great, sounding like the refrain of a melodramatic folk song.

The mountain men give icey stares

When hunting down those brown, brown bears

Let me summarize. On the one hand, we have a religious corporation --- the Jesuits --- who have bent head over heels to undo their reputation as arch-conservative agents provacateures on behalf of an institution which Dan Brown believes to be more diabolical than the mythical exploits of the Knights Templar. On the other hand, we have an educational institution located in New England which even as objective a publication as the Encyclopedia Britannica does not hesitate to identify as "extraordinarily liberal." On the surface, this contest sounds about as interesting as an argument between two Boston Democrats over who was a better senator, John Kerry or John Kennedy. Even if you lose, you win.

This is not how Brown University saw it. In part, the headline reads....

BROWN STUNS #19 HOLY CROSS

Much matter was made over the fact that the Crusader's quarterback, Dominic Randolph, is an All-American. And that Holy Cross is ranked #19 nationally. During the game, Brown quarterback Kyle Newhall broke the Ivy League record for completions in a single game. As a result of these exploits, Kyle Newhall was named Ivy League offensive player of the week. The article mentions that Newhall's "46 completions broke the previous Ivy League mark of 44 completions by Brown’s Kyle Slager against Rhode Island on October 5, 2002." Would it surprise you to learn that Kyle Slager works for Brandes Investment Partners?

Two Kyles, two records, one team.

If I were a betting man, I'd wager that the second Kyle will follow in the footsteps of the first. Not only into the legendary annals of Brown football history. But also down the yellowbrick road into financial services. But that's just me.

Banker-Doctor

In the mid-1990s, there was a touching advertisement for the Montel Williams show which proclaimed, "Montel Brings People Together." At ESPN.com, Dana O'Neil plays Montel Williams to two Princeton-grads, Gabe Lewullis and Steve Goodrich, bridging the "3,000-mile divide" that separates them. That's a long way in geographical terms, but for two old Tigers, a very short distance of the heart.

Unlike some people reunited by the ministrations of a Montel Williams, Lewullis and Goodrich aren't two strained ex-lovers carping at each other over a piece of abandoned personalty, or hill-billy brothers-in-law fighting for the the custody of their half-children, or ex-convicts exchanging gang symbols, crude gestures, and profanity-laced threats from either side of a well-lit, poorly carpeted television studio. But then again, Dana O'Neil sure as hell isn't one of our nation's leading male African-American talk show hosts who has won multiple Emmys in his storied career as a latter-day Mahatma Gandhi. But the walk down memory lane is no less touching.

In 1996, the Tigers won a game in the first round of the NCAA tournament when Steve Goodrich threw a bounce-pass to Gabe Lewullis, who scored with a layup, "backdooring Princeton into history and defending national champion UCLA out of the tournament."

O'Neil says: "....the 1996 first-round game in Indianapolis remains the symbol of Princeton basketball: the classic Cinderella staging the upset against the game's royalty."

That's the motto of Princeton, isn't it? Pauperes in ludum ludi, Reges in ludum vitae. Very roughly translated: Paupers in the Games of Children, Kings in the Game of Life.

You see, Goodrich and Lewullis may not be great basketball players in the grand scheme of things. But, "Lewullis is the chief resident in orthopedic surgery at Hahnemann University Hospital in Philadelphia. Goodrich is in California, where he works for 1st Century, a bank he actually helped start. (So today that pass goes from banker to doctor. … What were you expecting from two Princeton grads?)"

That's right, Dana. What were we expecting? In fact, we were expecting that exactly, since the story is advertised on the website for Ivy League Sports as "Banker-Doctor."

This is just a warm-up. The full glories of Ivy League football will be revisited in my next post.

Cornell 14, Yale 12: Oh Big Red, How You Win the Played Games So Greatly

"In a game of play and punt, it was the first Cornell offensive snap that made all the difference. The Big Red defense made sure of it."

In a life where all the real news makes you blue, this is the first sports journalism I have ever read that sounds like Holden Caulfield talking to himself. The Big Red story made sure of it.

What are we doing here, anyway? You could tell reading about Big Red that it didn't matter all that much, any of it. But awww shucks, at least give it a shot guys. At least pretend that it all makes sense. If you win, you win. There's no sense in pretending that you didn't do it. And if you did it, don't try to fake like you didn't like it, you big phonies. "Cornell improved to 2-0 for the second straight year..."

That's more like it. The thing that was different about Phoebe is that she wasn't afraid to call people for what they were. If she beat the new Yale coach, Tom Williams, she wouldn't be afraid to say that she utterly spoiled his home debut. A spade is a spade. Those ducks frozen beneath the pond--- they're frozen ducks.

Ahem.

"Cornell improved to 2-0 for the second straight year, spoiling the home debut of Yale coach Tom Williams with an exciting 14-12 victory over the Bulldogs on Saturday afternoon at the Yale Bowl."

That's what they call classy spunk. Only they don't actually call it that because it would utterly spoil the whole point of being classy. The whole point of being classy is going 2-0 even when, errr, you aren't really a 2-0 sort of team.

Now I'm not saying I like show biz, I'm just saying that's how it is in show biz. If I make $200 on September 19, 2008 and $200 on September 26, 2008, and I make $200 on September 19, 2009 and $200 on September 26, 2009, then I'm up $400 in both years, no matter how much I lost on all the other days there were to win and lose money. If I win two games last September, and then I go ahead and win two games this September, I'm 2-0. Two wins, no losses. I'm not padding the numbers. That's how it is.

"Bryan Walters took an 81-yard pass from Stephen Liuzza to the house on the first offensive play of the game for the Big Red ....."

That's the thing about Big Red. So modest. Bryan Walters took an 81-yard pass to the house? I beg to differ, gentlemen. Big Red took Yale to the house. Cornell took Tom Williams to the house. Just like the United States takes the world to the house, God takes evildoers to the house, and rich people take poor people to the house. Oh screw it, I'll just say it. This article takes Ivy League football to the house.

One more: This next sentence takes touchdowns to the house. "In between, junior safety Anthony Ambrosi returned an interception 20 yards for a score."

A score. Think genus, not species. Think sports por lo general, not futbol Americano in particular. Think broadly, my little kittens. Think article probably written by a female sports journalist with little familiarity with the game. Think sports team named after an ambiguous visual reality, a concatenation of color and magnitude, something large and included among the primary colors, something visible and eye-catching and also sizable. Oh Big Red! Oh you! Oh Ivy League football, you're back and I love you.

Thank to Cornell's website for quotes

The Big Game Is This Week

On Friday, September 25, Americans across this great land will take in the most anticipated sporting event of the Autumn..... the Brown Harvard game, naturally, wherewith the Ivy League football season is officially underway.

I am resolving this year to follow Ivy League Football because, (1), its sheer triviality makes it a hilarious thing to follow; and (2), the idea of Ivy Leaguers thinking of themselves as "college athletes" is no more laughable in any context than in the sport of football. Hence, the Ivy League Correspondence, wherein your class-resentful scribe promises to juxtapose the outsize financial accomplishments that await Ivy league footballers on the other side of graduation (Hank Paulson was a Dartmouth linebacker) with the plight of state-school, "real" athletes facing assymetric employment prospects.

Perhaps I might even include comment on the country club atmosphere and high-end fashion accessories that prevail in the "crowd." I scare-quote that because crowd implies teeming masses of unwashed, toothless illiterates. Audience might be the far better word.

Following Ivy League football is especially funny if you work with someone from Cornell. Since the first thing you learn about a "Big Red" is that they went to Cornell, it is helpful to remind such a person of the diminutive accomplishments of their prestigious institution even within the already diminished arena of Ivy League athletics.

To get a better idea of why Ivy League football is so hilarious, allow me to quote from the Ivy League Football weekly report for 9/21/09.

SPECIAL TEAMS PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Yale senior punter/placekicker TOM MANTE (Westford, Mass.) connected on a 50-yard field goal, the longest in school history since Ed Perks connected on a 52-yarder against Cornell in 1990, in the Bulldogs’ 31-10 win over Georgetown. A dual-kicking specialist, Mante averaged 42.8 yards on six punts with punts of 73 (two shy of the school record) and 65 yards. He recovered his own on-side kick and tallied seven points (1 FG, 4 PATs) on the day.

Almost two decades after his storied Yale football career, do you think Ed Perks is sweatin' it? Or could Ed Perks, too, have found a lucrative career in financial services?


RESPONSIBLITIES
Mr Perks is a Senior Vice President with Franklin Global Advisers. His industry research
responsibilities included computer hardware, specialty finance, major integrated oils, oil
and gas exploration and production, oil field services and equipment, chemicals, and the
food and beverage industries.

As with this installment, my sources for the Ivy League Correspondence will be scattered among press reports and other material available on the Internet. In other words, I won't be going to a single game. But I think the last part goes without saying.