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?ORTS
FRIDAY
OJOBER 20, 2000
10
A Green and Wfhte
confession ...
O the banks of the Red Cedar, there's a school that's
known to all. Or at least most. I disregard my out-of-
state friends who, until they
went off to school, "only thoucht
there was one college in Michigan."
Bjecause to me. those banks -
and that school -were always
verv well known.,
Perhaps this is confession thera-
pvw but it's time for me to come
clegn. I was born into, and raised
in. Spartan fandom. DAVID
Icannot claim to have been a DEN HERDER
Spartan through and through (of
coLrse, not even the Spartans can The
claim to have been Spartans M1,1i' i )iy
through and through - they were
actually the "Michigan Staters"
until a baseball beat writer pulled another nickname out of his
head).
But my family ties to the Green and White eo back almost
longer than I can remember. Weekends at the grandparents' in
East Lansine never came without a Michigan State football
o game on the tube. The earliest household names I can recall are
icorge Perles and Lorenzo White. If only I could remember
which design the Spartans decided on for helmets that near.
An inquisitive kid, I'd ask my mother whv Michican State
cheerleaders had the letter "S" on their chests.
"The 'S' stands for State," she would say.
The "V," I realized later, was alreadv taken.
Trips to the %\ooded campus on the Red Cedar continued into
Iry adolescence. The first college football game I cver saw was
from the cheap seats of Spartan Stadium - although I was
more concerned with throwin ice cream sandwiches C1n the
cars below.
The home team lost - but nobody seemed too disappointed.
After all. asking for more than one Rose Bow I in a decade was
a little creedv. They'd et back to Pasadena in the '90s
Besides these Spartans had all the land thev could want,
hanks to all those hard-earned farmin -rants. and what more
could vou ask for?
But just like the Aggies of Michigan Agricultural Collece. as
I grew older I sought different things. I didn't «ant a new
name, necessarilv, but different experiences.
For years I had listened to the propaganda and tried to justify
it in my own head. Michican State. I told myself. was just as
good a school as Michigan.lThe Spartans were just as likely to
beat the Wolverines as thee ither wav around. And when it came
to academics. what I'd been told from day one kept repeating in
my head.
"Thev're both good universities."
So when the time came to make the call for myself, honestly,
t wasn t easy. State was appealing.
Sure. I enjoyed all the trees, I enjoyed the smell of farmland
I even enjoved paying S5 for "a cup" at a friend's party.
But something was tugiM. Perhaps it was the idea of
change. Perhaps it was ambition.
Perhaps it was the fact that I'd heard hundreds of Michigan
punchlines about arrogant pricks and Rose Bowl losses - but
never one about deliveringpizzas.
I remember telling an older acquaintance before makin my
decision that I was planning on either Michigan or Michigan
State.
"Either?" she said, and smiled wlking awa.
Until recently, I never knew what that meant. As a freshman
in Ann Arbor, old friends and family would al ays ask if I still
rooted for Michigan State.
"I'll always have a little green in nv blood," I would sav.
I'm an honest man, but some things become untrue with Th
time. And lavin on the cool grass of Michigan's central cam- (t
pus this fall, I finally realized what "Either?- really means.
It means I never have to answer the question: "Oh. now M
which one is that?". Pr
It means I never have to add "... because I wanted to study
and they have a realt good program ..." to try to justi- H
fy my school.
It means that, for the rest of my life, I can just say
-Michian," and there are no questions asked.
- David Denlier can he reached
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Crfticizin 101: A lesson
for Eri A/cQuinn
sometimes laugh at how nany times I tried to do things just to be
"cool" in grade school. Nhether it was sporting a red vest like
Martv McFiy in "Back ! the Future,
wearing my first pair ofAdias without
shoelaces like Run DMC, ortrving to mimic
the breakdancing I saw on Soul Train," I
tried to do it all.
It looks like the Michigai Daily.
Michigan's quasi-student nAwspaper, riding
the coattails of columnist Irin McQuinn
tied to do the same thing ctober 10, adding
fuel to the fire of a heatedivahrv. ERIC
Now I know the "other' university is lack- LACY
inc a nationally renowne accredited school
ofbjoumalism, but a colunn referring to a The
"sketchy" visit to East Lnsing, with refer- M5tat NCu,
ence to K-mart and Prad bags (whatever
those are) just seemed tc be a waste of space.
Well, I think the Nat nal Enquirer and Mad Magazine are hiring.
Here's a primer on happenings at Michigan: When athletics aren't
going well, athletes arcuetting in trouble and the athletic department is
recovering fi-om bad ivestments, so-called "fans" get mouths as big as
former basketball center Robeirt Traylor's waistline.
They attack the cit\ f East Lansing and Michigan State's history
full of iich tradition. Is a common practice, we as Spartans do the
exact same thine in o times of despair, and we sure have had man.
In mv lifetime we live lost to the Wolverweenies in football 15
times. That's 15 timesoo many.
Hopefully, the majrity of individuals representing Michigan State
criticize a little mnore ntelliently.
I lere's some insigl: from our friend at the self-proclaimed "Harvard
of the Midwest.
Scholarly criticisn No. 1.
"Our parties are ,Pout 500 times better than theirs"
That-might be trig of Michigan State if the columnist's definition of
a party is rounding ip three of your basketball players in a booster-
sponsored sports uity vehicle to play drunken tag on the frecwav
Scholarly criticim No. 2.
All the MSU gis at a certain party seemed "terribly plain" and
..went to K-mart tcether to buy some ofT-the-shelf-box shade of
blonde."
This actually rri'ht be an accurate of the opinion of the columnist.
depending on whi she saw. At least they didn't steal the hair coloring *
from the discoun ;tore. like some Michigan football players last year
cunning for maixand blue light specials.
One frat partyi not representative of MSU, nor would one visit to
lash Bash or thcrunning of the Naked Mile be representaive of
Michigan.
In all fairnessfiough, McQuinn's column shouldn't be taken too
seriously. low (dible is a paper that has multiple editors for each
specific departnmt and blatantly prints swear words anyway'? It's the
Michigan Daily-The Michigan Delay, but obviously the column still
angers people. 'rew up approximately 7.4 miles from East Lansing,
and after readiu her reference to a visit to East Lansing as "sketchv"
I took it persoally.
It was prtty'sketchy" when your men's basketball tean came to
the Breslin Cener last March and displayed "el imatador" defense en
route to a 51 pant barrage of whoop-ass from the future national
champions.
It was also oetty sketchy when wideout Plaxico Burress had a
career high I ( eceptions for 255 yards en route to a 34-31 triumph
over "goldeni by" Drew Henson and the Wolverweenies.
My lovaltyo the green and white runs deep and as I'm sure you
can tell by nw, Ms. McQuinn, my fellow Spartans are not happy.
My parens went to MSU,.they lived on Spartan Avenue and I
learned wha a college actually was after I got my first pair of green
Spartan janilies.
Even thogh the Spartans are considered to be 16 point underdogs
against theX'olverines Saturday, I believe in miracles.
A Michian State student hiked the Great Wall of China recently,
spanning (er 1,800 miles, becoming one of the first foreigners ever to
complete ie entire length accurately.
Anvthirg can happen tomorrow.
I get digusted when I remember one of the worst things I did to trv
to be coo with my little fiends in grade school.
Luck v that Michigan hat I once wore to impress them only cost me
75 cenitat a garage sale. How fitting.
-.Ste News spois editor Eric Lacy tinukforer' ichiga baskeball,
p/arr c Jalen Rose /ooks like E. 1, and can be r'eac-hed at
lacl.-erictarsul.edu. -
1'
fi[ PHOTO7
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HiGAN
I)OM
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TATE
TOMORROW, 3:30 P.M., MICHIGAN STADIUM
e top 10 plays from the rivalry
hat you will remember)
atchups
eviews
umorous insight
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IN TODAY'S DAILY
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