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Only BU students perpetuate BC rivalry

Since the fall of 1990, when I was a freshman at Boston College, I have been dealing with this inferiority complex-driven “BC sucks” attitude/rivalry. Several of my friends from high school ended up at schools like Northeastern, Tufts and Boston University.

When I arrived in Boston, I looked up a friend at BU and we made plans to get together. One Friday night, I showed up at his dorm on Bay State Road so that I could meet his friends and hang out with him. I was introduced to some clown who exclaimed an unapologetic “I’m sorry,” when he heard that I attended BC, and sort of smirked as if he was in on some joke that no one except BU students could understand. I thought to myself that this was strange, seeing as BU and BC, while differing in size, had been described to me as fairly equivalent in status. For the remainder of my college career I had occasional run-ins like this one, but never have I been inundated with so much anti-BC rhetoric as when I began graduate school at BU.

In his idiotic column about stupidity, Grant Myers re-invoked this attitude with a baseless comment about Boston College students being patently stupid (“Stupid is as stupid does in BU’s past, present” April 2). The sad fact is that no one except BU students feels this way. This “rivalry,” as far as I can tell, is based on jealousy, elitism and a lack of general pride in your own school. BC students may be more homogenous than those at BU, but in my experience, most of the hipster-ism I’ve seen on campus here is blatantly bland and certainly nowhere near as cutting edge as you think (yeah, those raver pants and the old school NB’s are just brimming with originality).

Academically, BC has advantages over BU in some areas, while BU has advantages over BC in other areas. We all know who has a better ranking, enjoys a stronger academic reputation and requires higher admission standards. As for athletics and school spirit, don’t even get me started. Aside from Jack Parker, who is an excellent hockey coach and recruiter, it’s no contest — BC athletics are the best in New England.

Ironically, no one in Chestnut Hill cares about this petty stuff. BC’s student weekly paper rarely mentions BU in its columns or features, unless there’s a highly anticipated hockey match-up. There certainly isn’t any attitude regarding BU students all being Eurotrash, cell phone yapping, spoiled brat mongoloids who couldn’t think their way out of a paper bag, and regardless of how much money daddy has, couldn’t get into a better school.

That would be mean-spirited, presumptuous, rude and just plain wrong. Similar to Myers’ unfounded comments and the overall attitude I’ve experienced. I will urge those of you that read this letter to think before you make these kinds of suppositions about people you don’t even know. Perhaps if you focused on making your own school a better place, you wouldn’t have so much free time to throw grenade lobs up Commonwealth Avenue at the Heights.

Jeff Gagne GRS ’04

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