Thursday, October 9, 1997
Deep, dark secrets of the sports department revealed
Dear readers,
We here in the Daily Bruin sports department have recently
decided that the time has come to take our relationship to the next
level.
Throughout the long and beautiful relationship between us and
those few of you who realize that there is more to The Bruin than
the crossword puzzle and advertisements for sperm and egg donors,
one constant has remained: You are out there in the real world,
while we have remained in the enchanting fantasyland that is The
Bruin sports office. Well, no longer.
Ladies and gentlemen, the time has come to bring you inside our
magnificent penthouse office and reveal our deepest secrets to
you.
Now before you start lining up Soviet-supermarket-style outside
Kerckhoff, let me quickly add that we don’t actually want you
coming down here. We took a vote and pretty much agreed that you’re
all a bunch of lowlifes, the likes of which we’d rather not be seen
with. I mean, come on … look at yourselves; some of you are as
dirty as a freshman.
No, instead we decided that it would be better to just describe
our deepest and darkest secrets to you and keep you physically at
arm’s distance, or at the very least, downwind.
To be perfectly honest, we don’t really have lots of deep, dark
secrets. Sorry, I guess we’re kind of boring that way. In fact, we
only have one: "The Jackass of the Month."
Each month, the sports staff chooses a member of the sporting
community who has distinguished him or herself (we’re an equal
opportunity moral authority) as the biggest jerk over the past 28,
29, 30 or 31 days.
The list of past winners reads like a who’s who of sporting
buttheads. Roger Reid, the former coach of the BYU basketball team,
was an early honoree. Reid earned the distinction when he told
Mormon recruit Chris Burgess that he had let down his church, his
apostles and the millions of Mormons around the world by choosing
Duke over the Mormon school.
There were the members of the USC press department who issued a
stern warning to the media not to refer to their teams as "Southern
Cal." ("It’s like calling … North Carolina "North Car," the
release stated.) Instead they offered a list of "preferred" names,
including women of Troy and So. California, as if So. California
somehow gives the school a more dignified air.
Then there were the folks who designed the Denver Broncos’ new
uniforms. And of course, there’s our reigning champion, Marv
Albert.
But my personal favorites have to be Dick DeVenzio and his
brother. The appropriately named Dick ran an ad offering a job for
student-athletes in compliance with NCAA Proposal 62, which allows
them to earn part-time income.
It appears that Dick’s brother suffered from an extreme fear of
being abducted by aliens, and he was willing to pay anyone who
could protect him. The ad states (and I am not making this up) that
"you may offer prevention in the form of mantras, incantations,
rituals and other practices – from afar – or you may serve as a
personal bodyguard – whatever method you typically use and have
found effective."
However, it warned, he won’t "pay you if your method fails."
We were never sure if the ad was a joke or not, but Dick and his
brother were simply too good to pass up, and they took home the
jackass title early this spring.
The award itself stems from last fall, when a certain basketball
coach (let’s just call him Dick, too, OK?) put a dark stain on the
proudest tradition in college athletics and threw a beloved program
into turmoil with his less-than-shining behavior off the court.
We found that the most common adjective suggested around the
office when describing this "Dick" was "jackass," which it was
thoroughly agreed that he had to be the biggest in at least the
past month or so.
The next thing you know, the "(Dick) Memorial
Jackass-of-the-Month Wall" was set up (OK, we just stuck his
picture on the cubicle wall we already had, but you get the idea)
and a tradition was born.
So, there you have it. I know it’s not as bad as getting into
fights down by $1.50 Subs or getting caught smoking pot, but it’s
the darkest secret we’ve got. I just hope that by sharing it with
you, we here at The Bruin have brought the two sides (readers and
writers) a little closer together, and who knows, maybe, just
maybe, done a little good.
Sincerely,
Rob
Oh, and by the way: Southern Cal, Southern Cal, Southern
Cal!
Kariakin is a fourth-year human sexuality student who is
searching for a study partner. Interested parties may e-mail him at
[email protected]