USU's
not a football school - basketball will cure our inferiority
complex
By Andrea Edmunds
October 2, 2006 | A friend once told us a story about
her trip in Arizona. Almost from the moment she stepped
off the plane, she said she was forced to listen to
everyone in Arizona's reasons why they didn't live in
Utah.
Good for them. Aside from going to visit her former
roommate, this girl had never thought about the desert
south of the Utah border, and she didn't really care
why people lived there. In fact, we figure the average
Utahn doesn't ever think of the state below us unless
they're cheering for the Suns or the Diamondbacks. The
Arizonians obviously had some sort of inferiority complex.
But we don't really care about it because they aren't
bothering us.
However, the tide turned on us not too long ago when
a BYU student, right in the middle of our "100 Reasons
Not To Attend BYU" lecture, stopped us to ask where
exactly USU was.
Talk about a slap in the face.
After much research -- meaning we sat around talking
about it and bashing the U and BYU -- we came to a conclusion
about those two schools from the south and what they
think about us.
Or what they don't think about us.
USU is not a football school. That is a known fact
and we can live with it. All we have to do through every
football loss is lean over to our neighbor, tap them
on the shoulder and say, "Wait until basketball season."
However, the U and BYU are both football schools, and
each has a rich history in their football programs.
Good for them. I'm sure most of us have grown up watching
the USU-BYU football game, the Holy Grail of college
football in Utah and probably much of Idaho.
But basketball hasn't ever been as big down there.
A couple of us remember going to the USU-Utah game last
year. There were almost more Aggie fans than Utah fans
in the Huntsman Center. And no matter how many times
we tried to bring up how many points we won by last
year, nobody from the U remembered or cared.
Don't even get us started on BYU's basketball team.
The only good thing they ever had happen to them flopped
in the NBA.
So we've come to a conclusion about these two schools.
Outside their narrow little rivalry world, USU barely
exists. We're kind of like Arizona is to Utah, only
our reasons for not going to BYU are valid. Their reasons
for not living in Utah seem more like a desperate attempt
to find water in a desert.
Basically, as Aggies, we've developed some sort of
inferiority complex because we're so far north Salt
Lake and Provo have forgotten we exist. But there is
still time, we can do something about this.
The obvious answer would be that we need to enter
their realm of competition and beat them in something
they really care about. Since our football team isn't
likely to score any points any time soon, we had to
come up with some other solutions.
OK, we really only came up with one. But it's good
enough it can stand on its own.
While the Utes and the Cougars are so entirely caught
up in themselves and each other, we'll move into another
arena. We don't have to make them care. We'll prove
we're better than them by ignoring them.
All we have to do is get more national recognition
than those two schools combined, then they'll have to
turn around and figure out where exactly we came from.
It'll be simple! The best would be to get national recognition
in football, since they still are and will always be
football schools. But since the only likely way for
that to happen is to get every remaining USU football
player in jail, we're opting for another solution.
Let's really make some noise on our terms. Everyone
up here knows that basketball is better than football
any day.
Let's show them what a real basketball school can
do.
NW
RB |
