We were watching the NCAA tournament when we happened to notice that (surprisingly) the majors of most of the players were stuff like communications, marketing schemes, or hotel management.

These are not majors offered by Yale College. Could Yale’s inability to recruit big-time athletes be the result of their now-seemingly narrow curriculum? Could this bastion of educational superiority be behind the times? Cornell has a school of hotel management, human ecology, and according to some, pharmacology. We can’t be left behind, sucking at the winds of change.

To set Yale straight, we’re offering some advice (a little late for the Academic Review). Time to get Yale on the winning end of both academics and athletics.

For starters, we spoke to Professor A– of the Psychology Department. In return for his input, he demanded anonymity and a gift certificate for Jaylyn’s Chicken. “Zis chicken is vunderbar,” he said. (Professor A– claims to be Prussian.)

We handed him a WetNap and asked him to cut to the chase.

“In Prussia ve have athletes,” he said. “Zey zink zat ze program at Yale is severely limited regarding ze elaborate process of pillaging, vhich is ironic, considering zhat zis sport seems to be enjoying increasing popularity in ze U.S. Perhaps a class detailing zhe inflammation of straw huts vould be beneficial to zhose vishing to have a position in U.S. foreign relations following zheir illustrious sports career, no?”

According to a White House representative, President George W. Bush was unable to respond, due to his ongoing state of “inner peace,” which some might liken to a coma.

We left our chicken-laden professor vaguely uninspired.

Professor B– of the History Department said that they were “already” tackling the problem.

“Next year we are planning on offering a full spectrum of courses designed for the pro athlete of tomorrow. ‘The History of Nike: From Myth to Market, Following the Evolution of Pagan God to Industry Legend.’ But also, we’re thinking of adding a sub-major in Sports History.”

We suggested that athletes might not solely think of sports.

The Professor adjusted his glasses, coughed, blew his nose, wiped the sweat dripping off his forehead and muttered, “Damn SARS.” After a five minute pause in which he appeared to have fallen asleep (was this Bush’s inner peace? or just SARS?), Professor B– harrumphed and said, “This is Yale, mind you. We will have lecture notes posted online and optional exams for ‘The Making of the Modern Athlete: Imperialism, Colonialism, Cannibalism, Materialism et al.'”

Suddenly, a triumvirate of tweedy grad students burst out from under his desk and escorted us out of the room.

We felt like we were getting nowhere. Perhaps Yale’s mentality just isn’t right. Who wants a well-rounded inter-disciplinary liberal arts education if one can’t be an athlete too? Maybe the athletics department is what needs to be changed, so that its sports offerings appeal to the vast majority of Yale students. Just as this dawned on us, we found ourselves outside of the Elizabethan Society. Drinking Guinness and watching cricket on television, several Elizabethans were available for comment.

“Ridiculous,” one said. “Yale athletics are ridiculous. How can you call yourselves Ivy League without a croquet team? Princeton has two croquet teams, each with their own eating club and specific dress codes. Yale — Yale hasn’t even got table tennis.”

“I came to this institution looking for homogeneity — and we’ve still got women’s sports,” said a rather un-athletic young lady. “There’s just no dignity in field hockey.”

When asked about her apparent beef with field hockey and women’s sports in general, our friend remonstrated her belief that physical exertion would cause “one’s balls to drop.” We grimaced uncomfortably, pocketed a few scones, and left this young woman sitting at the window, looking out wistfully at the active co-eds playing frisbee outside.

While getting smoked out later that night by the frisbee-playing co-eds, we discovered an untapped resource in the sheer lung-power present on campus. Human hot-air balloon races seemed like a good idea at the time, but so did Jaylyn’s Chicken. And it was there that we again ran into our psychology professor, whose Prussian accent was now mysteriously absent:

“I’ve been giving it some thought,” he said, bleary-eyed. “I was sitting completely naked in my apartment amidst my chicken bones with a few of my TA’s, listening to Bob Dylan, Live 66, Disc 1 at full volume when it struck me — a frisbee, that is. It jogged the subliminal residue of a stroke of genius: human hot-air balloon races, man.”

Yeah, we dig it. n

OLIVIA CIACCI
LUCAS HANFT