Sporting spirit of Hoosier camaraderie

IU has very graciously scattered public access computers across campus, like an Easter Bunny with an unhealthy Windows fixation.

There is a basic social contract that when there is a queue, students will use this gift to conduct urgent, important business and then leave as quickly as humanly possible.

Acceptable uses are things like writing papers, submitting papers and stealing mouse pads so that you can soundproof the DIY sex dungeon you’re building in your apartment.

I recently had a lot of time to contemplate this unspoken code while standing behind someone who spent 20 minutes checking basketball scores and occasionally sighing loudly.

When I attempted to politely explain why he needed to move, and if at all possible, fall down a well, I learned several things. Firstly, he was very upset and seemed only tenuously aware that many of his suggestions were both unhelpful and anatomically unfeasible.

Secondly, I don’t understand sports at all.

I was really disappointed to hear we lost whatever basketball game we just lost.

This was in large part because I understand President Barack Obama had optimistically declared we would win March Madness and now may decide to napalm our campus in a fit of pique. However, our loss means that I’m now going to graduate never having watched my alma mater play basketball.

I don’t have anything against basketball, or sporting events in general. I just tend to forget they exist.

I barely have the time and energy to pretend to care about the trials and tribulations of my close friends.

Asking me to suddenly invest any degree of interest in the lives of complete strangers as they throw balls into hoops seems a bit unreasonable.

I certainly am not about to follow it on the Internet and dream about ideal brackets and fantasy teams, although this is possibly because virtually all of my fantasies involve Winona Ryder.

For me, basketball is a lot like the Little 500 bike race and leprechauns: they may or may not actually exist.

I’ve never seen one personally, but it’s a perfect excuse to drink, and on a good day, flip cars and start riots.

There are a lot of great things to be said about IU sports, specifically the universal camaraderie that occurs on game days.

The men dress like Waldo, the women dress like Waldo’s jailbait paramour and, for the next few hours, anyone wearing candy stripes joins one big, obscene, alcoholic family.

What ultimately frustrates me is we can invest such energy into something as trivial as sports, watching every game, talking about it to our friends, reading about it online, and yet we tolerate White

Genocide graffiti, AIDS graffiti, racial slurs and general ignorance that occurs on campus.

The IU student body has a passion that is truly awe-inspiring, and nowhere is that more clearly seen than in our sporting arenas.

Maybe it’s time to apply that enthusiasm to the rest of our lives. I’m not advocating dressing like a Silver-Age Batman villain and becoming a vigilante with a wacky theme, although I would totally encourage it.

If you see White Power posters or hear people mocking the foreign exchange students, speak up.

Remind them that is not OK.

We’re a family here, and there is some shit we will not tolerate.

We’re IU students, not some uneducated mass that, when placated with bread and circuses, can ignore the problems around them.

­— stefsoko@indiana.edu