Hope you’ve all recovered from the rollicking good time Homecoming at BU always proves to be. I for one am still popping Advil and chugging Gatorade in a desperate attempt to recuperate from Friday’s Undergraduate Research Symposium, where crowd surfing was rampant, and Saturday’s hard hat tours of the Student Village construction site, which featured scantily clad cheerleaders and throngs of elated revelers basking in school pride under the warm glow of blowtorches and the thumping disco beats of jackhammers.
Forget Big Ten football tailgating BU in all its athletic glory featured women’s field hockey! Let me tell you, you could taste the collegiate spirit in the air, wafting off Nickerson across West Campus, as 3.2 fans coaxed the team along with chants of ‘come on girls, we almost care.’ Not that I don’t appreciate young women in skirts wielding wooden clubs, but the sport’s fan base takes distant second to dwarf tossing.
As for live entertainment, the University of Massachusetts featured Good Charlotte (coupled with Ooze fest, a co-ed mud volleyball tournament open to all students no kidding). Northeastern touts comedian Bill Maher. The University of Tennessee welcomed D.L. Hughley. BU? Hang on to your hats! Dave Matthews, Aerosmith, 50 or Snoop? Think again. On Friday night, Marsh Chapel rocked to groovy tunes of the Marsh Chapel Choir concert.
If you missed the choir concert, despair not. An 8 a.m. Saturday ‘5k fun run’ down the Esplanade should have cleared your head, but you had better have registered and paid the $15 fee ($5 for BU students). If my immediate family came to visit it would cost 50 bucks to jog next to the Charles River. That’s almost as ludicrous as the $60 charge for a Sports Pass that permits me to spend more money on tickets to watch … field hockey! You go girls.
If you needed to relax after the physical exertion of the ‘pleasure jog’ or whatever the hell it was, BU homecoming offered the ultimate destination. Marsh Chapel Dean Robert Neville hosted a tea and open house. Light refreshments were served. In case you are not yet familiar with BU jargon, that’s code for ‘Catering on the Charles will deliver stale sugar cookies and burnt coffee in a truck large enough to haul tanks to Baghdad.’
Now don’t get me wrong, I appreciate all that BU does to promote school spirit, like hosting BU vs. BC hockey rivalries over semester break when no one is here. Or terminating the football program because the field hockey team brought in more money.
I’d love to defend my cherished institution of higher learning in heated debates about our unparalleled fervor of school spirit, but I’d have the same chances the Yankees do of beating the Marlins. As I write this, a visiting University of Illinois friend is outright mocking me. ‘Whoa, the Saturday Night Extravaganza features dancing, juggling and a capella! You guys really know how to party.’ How do you respond to that? ‘Man you should have been to the chowdah fest.’ Or, ‘Brunch in the dining halls was insane, dude.’
This year’s homecoming title, ‘Be True To Your School,’ was worse than a sea urchin enema. Unfortunately, the truth is my school hosts School of Management tours while U of Tennessee holds an indoor pool competition called ‘Anything Goes.’
Arguably the most school spirit of the weekend was evident in the all-night float building event behind CAS. According to the BU website, a DJ, free food and masseuses entertained the float builders. Aren’t you glad to know ‘partially funded by your undergraduate student fee’ really means ‘your college fund spent to massage the aching shoulders of the Cross-dressing Club and the nonexistent Greek system?’
Who will reign as king and queen of Homecoming 2003? No one. They don’t exist. I nominate outgoing prez John Silber for king. Come on people, who better to reign over an impassioned field hockey game?
All else aside, BU homecoming/Parents’ Weekend/nobody cares fiesta isn’t all that bad. Emeril transformed dinning hall meals from ‘my dog wouldn’t eat this crap’ to Mongolian beef. The two grass patches on campus are beautifully adorned with pumpkins and corn stalks, and field hockey fever grips the entire campus.
Who needs to roll out the kegs for the big football rivalry? Here at BU, the best advice for fun-filed festivities on campus leave. Head to the Charles and watch the cross-dressers trounce our crew team. Be True To Your School.
Cory Hardy, a senior in the College of Communication, is a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press.