The longest days of the year generate strange behavior in climes around the Arctic Circle: euphoria, grandiose behavior and sudden personality change, and generally everything else we can half-remember from that episode of Northern Exposure where Joel coaches the Cicely men’s basketball team to near-greatness before collapsing after nearly a week of being awake. (Northern Exposure: that’s science, right?)
All we know about sleep disorders, we learned from Northern Exposure.
The longest days of the year maximized bad behavior in dramatic fashion in the college football world, too. We catch you up on three stellar stories, all unfolding in the past few days, and all really, really not things we advise doing at any point in your life.
-Begin with small potatoes: Brian White, the new offensive coordinator at Syracuse, has a bachelor’s from Harvard, a masters’ degree from Fordham, and an MBA from Notre Dame. We know this has dire implications on his ability to properly execute the Bankhead Bounce; but his lack of a degree from an SEC school may explain why he misjudged his alcohol meter and got behind the wheel of a car Saturday night, blowing a .17 for the po-po and earning himself a nice DWI charge. (That much student debt would drive us to drink, too, Brian. Felicidades!) The single Fulmer Cup point awarded marks a new trend for Syracuse and its crack-of-the-ass-reeking offense: scoring!
Making this all better is that White was the subject of a citizen’s arrest by someone who saw him driving erratically and blocked him in until police could get to the scene. (HT: Bill.)
-Male cheerleaders are typically assumed to be a.) gay, or b.) strange. Marshall’s male cheerleaders have broken out of the mold and boldly challenged those stereotypes. Their avant-garde, genre-bending takes on being a male cheerleader have earned them a hefty sexual harrassment suit from a former female cheerleader at Marshall. This may be the single greatest newspaper article ever written, since it contains the following seemingly unquotable quotables:
“In it, she claims male members of the squad exposed themselves, rubbed their genitals on the female members’ faces and called the females “bitches, whores” and other derogatory names, including one typically used to refer to female genitalia.”
K.C. also says he exposed his penis to her, rubbed his scrotum (in a motion known as “teabagging”) on her head and face, promised her a permanent spot on the squad if she would have sex with him, requested they make a pornographic video together and “announced that he wanted to f-k her.”
She blames Dunn for “calling cheers by names such as ‘Bearded Clam (vagina), More Head (oral sex) and String of Pearls (ejaculation).”
Also, she says Dunn ordered the female cheerleaders to put golf balls down their cleavage and skirts at a golf function and also expected them to kiss a putter shaped like a penis and show their breasts.
Marshall’s turning into a Benny Hill skit! Or a horrible cauldron of retrograde sexual politics! Reread the article with this playing behind it for double laughs, if the article doesn’t make you weep for the future of man. (HT: Devil Grad and Brian.)
Marshall’s new cheerleading coach, reporting for duty.
-And completing the savory trio: a story involving ’90s Mexican drug ring and the tOSU “director of student performance” (not to be confused with their “academic encourager” and “angora goat wrangler,” the guy who corrals the special goats supplying the supple hairs for Jim Tressel’s trademark sweaters. Who knows if this guy actually exists, but it’s just funnier to think of Jimmy T pimpin’ Angora on the sidelines.)
Eric Lichter, the director in question, was convicted in 1998 of a misdemeanor drug charge involving an envelope full of Rohypnol and Ritalin. He fessed up completely to the episode in his interview process, and Tressel and tOSU administration stand by him. There’s little to get excited about here besides the fact that checking “YES!” on the “Have you ever been convicted of a crime?” question on the Buckeyes application does not seem to have a negative influence on your ability to get hired there.
But considering what we’ve seen about Ohio lately, finding someone who doesn’t check yes may be a difficult task. (Unfair? Maybe. Then again, we root for a team whose state has its own tag on Fark, so considering it a loving nudge from the state where people see Jesus in waterstains at car dealerships.)
