A
POT NTI COUNTERPOT NT
Going pro?
With Batman and Superman
You can tell a Martha
Cook girl a mile away /
Because she looks so
sweet and blase /
She always performs with
the greatest of ease /
And her motto is she
aims to please.
- Song "You can tell a Martha Cook girl"
from the 1946 Martha Cook annual
By Batman
A much as one claims to love the
apparently "untarnished" and "pure"
college sports environment, such
trite sentiment hides the truth: col-
lege athletics simply aren't as vital,
powerful or engaging as professional
athletics.
Like the way I dispense justice,
pro sports offer unadulterated per-
formance with no pretenses.
I assume you will preach about the
glorious equality of college sports, the
Ii ii
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SPORTS
INTRAMURALS
The University of Michigan
Department of Recreational Sports
Intramural Sports Program
www.recsports.umich.edu
734-763-3562
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SPORTS
INTRAMURALS
Greco-Roman idealism of the student-
athlete and such related clap trap.
Ah, Superman, always confused,
always straining for the illogical and
impossible.
Professional sports are the brutal
perfection of athletics. I don't want
my athletes to be young, half-formed
and stuck in a murky twilight of col-
legiate athletics that's at best tainted.
There are no secrets in pro sports:
the athletes are groomed machines,
breakdowns on the field and off are
in full view of the public domain
and there utter transparency toward
the creeping intermingling of money
and sports.
College sports are just another
shadowy den of crime. Boosters
give millions to "amateur" athletes,
untold sins are made in the lecture
halls and libraries by young men
and women who believe themselves
higher than the laws confining the
"mortal" students.
So, I say take your dirty pool of
college athletics Superman, the ide-
als of athletics are dead, and in their
stead I say celebrate the pragmatic
and bloody warriors of professional
athletics. These men and women
know their role in society, they have
no pretenses, they are citizens, not
puffed up children.
11
PIrCoSeason
Entries due:
Wed, 10/19 4:30 PM
IM Building
Entry Fee:
$35 per team
Manager's Meeting:
MANDATORY
Thurs, 10/20
6:00 PM
IM Building
Tournament dates:
10/21 - 10/23
Mitchell Field
Flag Football
Entries taken:
Mon, 10/24 ONLY
11:00AM --4:30PM
IM Building
( Entry Fee:
$55 per team
Manager's Meeting:
MANDATORY
Wed, 10/26
7:15 PM
IM Building
Play begins:
Thurs, 10/27
IM Building
Wallyball
Entries taken:
Mon, 10/24 ONLY
11:30 AM -4:30 PM
IM Building
Entry Fee:
$90 per team
Manager's Meeting:
MANDATORY
Wed, 10/26
6:00 PM or 9:00 PM
IM Building
Play begins:
Thurs, 10/27
Mitchell Field
Flag Football
. Superman
While your "groomed machines"
run around their playing fields and
pretend to moon crowds or run into
the stands to try and maim people
who throw plastic cups, the real ath-
letes of the world are out busting
their asses on their respective play-
ing fields.
Then again, what would Batman
know about exceptional athletics?
You can't even fly, let alone stop a train
with your bare hands or have hours of
mind-blowing sex with Lois Lane ...
or any woman for that matter.
Anyways, much like that find- at-
the-bottom-of-a-cereal-box excuse
of a utility belt you have, profes-
sional sports are a joke. Since when
are middle-aged men with 15 knee
replacements and 30 illegitimate
children considered warriors or
heroes? The only thing heroic I see
about them is their ability to battle
through their swelled egos and the
ill-effects of steroids to somehow
find the strength to lie to Congress.
How admirable.
College athletes play for free (real
colleges, that is. That excludes you,
Columbus). They are the true war-
riors of the game, taking on all com-
ers for only the love of the game.
And when they're done giving
their blood, sweat and tears for their
respective institutions, these model
citizens and gods of academia bend
over backwards in the classroom.
Pro athletes may do some bending
over backwards too, but most of that
consists of the bending over back-
wards that Eugene Robinson did with
a hooker he picked up during Super
Bowl week a few years back. (No
really, I heard he's quite flexible.)
So Batman, take your "powerful"
pro athletes (Shawn Bradley) and I'll
settle for my weak little amateur ath-
letes (Matt Leinart). Not only would
Leinart kick Bradley's ass, but I'm
comfortable enough with my sexual-
ity to say that he'd look handsome
while doing it.
I mean, for God's sake, he got with
Kristin from "Laguna Beach."
from home for the first time. The
1932 Martha Cook Building bylaws
reveal a world in which telephone
conversations were limited to five
minutes and residents had to tidy
their room each week in prepara-
tion for its weekly cleaning. Week-
day curfew was 10 p.m., and women
could return as late as 1:30 a.m. on
Friday nights. In the 1940s, men
could visit residents' rooms once
a year for two hours on a Sunday
afternoon, and Chernow recalled
that residents "redecorated to get
ready for the big day." Most Uni-
versity residence halls were co-ed
by the late 1960s, but according to
current Board of Governors presi-
dent and former resident Catherine
Davis, who lived in Martha Cook
from 1968 to 1970, men were still
only allowed on the upper floors on
Friday and Saturday evenings and
Sunday afternoons.
Appearance was also regulated in
Martha Cook. For years, entrance
to the Gold Room and dining room
required askirt, and pantsuits were
not permitted for sit-down dinners
until 1972. Connie Amick lived in
Martha Cook during the mid-1950s
and said that her hall director had
"strong feelings about what was
proper" and did not permit residents
to cross their arms while waiting in
line for dinner.
Today, very little remains of the
curfews and dress codes that kept
previous generations of Cookies in
line. But, as is well known around
campus, men are not allowed in the
upper floors at night, and all guests
must be escorted by a resident.
Some students might shudder at the
thought of being subject to these
restrictions, but the women of Mar-
tha Cook hardly seemed to mind -
many prefer knowing they can walk
down the hallway at night without
running into any men.
Tea and tradition
The Messiah dinner, Friday after-
noon teas and formal dances form
the core of the Martha Cook expe-
rience but some classes have tried,
with varied success, to establish
their own traditions. In 1919, seniors
started Ivy Day, on which students
would head to the north side of the
building to plant ivy. The ivy refused
to grow, and residents abandoned
the tradition only a few years later.
May garden parties dated back to the
late 1920s, when, according to the
1946 annual, "someone realized that
both the terrace and the sweep of the
lawn offered infinite, possibilities
for a spring party." Recently, resi-
dents have re-introduced a once-lost
tradition to their sit-down dinners
by placing a spoon turned upward or
downward above their plate to indi-
cate whether they want coffee or tea
following dessert.
The Lawyers Tea is one of the
building's most important annu-
al formal teas, originally started
because Cook wanted "future law-
yers residing in the Law Quad to
meet good, respectable wives who
would at the time reside in the MC
building," according to an e-mail
from LSA senior and assistant resi-
dent director Londisa Halili.
Indeed, the general absence of
men has made them focus of sig-
nificant attention in both Martha
Cook's traditions and daily life
throughout its history. The rooms
facing the Law Quad were once cov-
eted for the view they offered - of
male law students livingacross the
street - the 1946 annual - the
Martha Cook yearbook - bragged
that former residents were more
likely than average to get married.
Current residents joked that some
women can pick up the slightest
hint of cologne if a man is present
in the hall, and Halili described a
recent mealtime debate over which
group of men on campus is the most
attractive. Today's women are far
less hurried to get married than in
the past, but even so, "A lot of girls
here get engaged their fourth year,"
Halili said.
Martha Cook myths are a tradition
in themselves. In 1916, editors of the
Martha Cook annual were among
the first to attempt to dispel such
misconceptions regarding the girl's
preparation for the outside world.
They entreated critics to visit the
hall. "They will gaze in astonish-
ment at the straggling line of hungry
looking girls who are precariously
balancing trays andareceiving their
daily dole of soup," the editors wrote.
"My friends, this is the bread-line,
and your fairy princess in engaged
in that most plebian of occupations
- indulging in a self-serve lunch."
Despite their humble lunches, resi-
dents still had their rooms cleaned
and linens changed weekly.
Today, Martha Cook's women do
their own laundry and clean their
own rooms, but they still laugh
about the rumors surrounding their
charmed lifestyle. They've heard
rumors that women must wear gloves
PETER SCHOTTENFELS/Daily
ABOVE: The statue of
Venus de Milo which
sits in Martha Cook
conveys a sense
of properness and
elegance. RGH T
elgne IH:Residents of Martha
Cook follow a variety
of traditions, including
Friday afternoon tea
and formal dances.
Entries taken:
Mon, 10/24 ONLY
11:00 AM-4:30 PM
IM Building
Entry Fee:
$90 per team
Manager's Meeting:
MANDATORY
Wed, 10/26
8:00 PM
IM Building
Play begins:
Thurs, 10/27
Yost Ice Arena
Broomball
The entry deadline for the Cross Country Meet is Thursday, October 27, at 4:30 PM.
Officials are needed for
Flag Football and Broomball.
Please contact Nicole Green at
764-0515 for more information.
____ ______________________________+'..g
The Michigan Da
12B - The Michigan Daily - Thursday, October 13, 2005