University of Virginia Library

Colloquium

The Joke's On Us

By Al Sinesky

It's time for us to take a closer
look at football jockism at the U.
There are three active forces in the
controversy: the football players
who like to win, the coaches who
have to win and the University
Community which wants to see a
winning team that will impress
rather than bore their dates on
those fall football weekends.

Now the question arises, "How
do we fulfill these winning goals?"
Three years ago, Coach Blackburn
decided that the answer lies in team
unity. This unity, he felt, could
best be achieved by herding the
players into the Alderman Road
dorms instead of permitting them
to live where they chose like
normal students. Since the players
"wanted to be winners," they voted
for the dorm requirement even at
the risk of sacrificing their own
individuality.

Since the decision was made it
has become obvious that the
Virginia Hilton isn't working.
Instead of creating unity, the
intimate contact and far from
luxurious accommodations have
caused dissent and ill feelings. Many
fourth year men, including the
captains, chose to apt out by living
in fraternities, on the Lawn or at
Copeley Hill. The unnatural
environment which developed from
the forced togetherness caused the
remaining unhappy players to both
voice and physically demonstrate
their discontent.

A number of the "dorm parties"
more closely resembled bar-room
brawls. It is obvious that any game
where a person has to wear 15 lbs.
of protective equipment is
somehow unnatural. It is also true
that the farther one strays from
what is natural the greater are the
number of codified rules that are
needed. (Take a look at an
elemented football rule-book
sometimes as opposed to one for
swimming).

Just as the unnatural game of
football needs formal rules and
regulations, the coaches soon
discovered that the players
unnatural living conditions needed
a strict rule book to maintain some
semblance of order. They based
their dictum on the American
ideals of apple pie, motherhood and
good clean living; values which are
part of our time honored system
and basic to the unspoken laws of
the athletic ideal.

But does Virginia bring the type
of beef on the hoof that is admitted
on the basis of bulk rather than
college Board scores? No, we don't;
but it is true that among the
football players there is a maximum
of ten per cent who do, in fact,
need these kinds of all prevailing
decrees to guide their daily lives. To
restrict the majority because of
the minority is at best unjust. It's
like recognizing that ten per cent of
the population has psychotic
tendencies but that 100 per cent
must attend regular Saturday
psychiatric sessions (no cuts,
please).

Other University sports,
however, have shown that they can
win without cohabitation or
enforced athletic ideals. The soccer
team wins even though some of the
players have long hair. The
basketball team rallied at the
season's end even though we have
no basketball suite.

Perhaps being Number One in
football can only be achieved at the
sacrifice of the individual. Virginia
unmistakably had something
unique in the way of an institution
where a student-athlete could go to
school, play football and in a sense
be himself. I wonder if forced
co-habitation and the regulations
that follow it are going to make
Virginia a winner or ultimately a
sorry loser.

Don't think you're going to get
off easy Virginia by passing the
buck onto the Football office. The
loyal Cavaliers must remember that
every time he yells "go Wahoos" at
"Scott Stadium he is expressing a
vote for jock dorms. A rousing
"give em hell" assents the violent,
aggressive behavior that must be
curbed by regulation for the sake of
image. And each time you feel on
uncontrollable urge to scream
We're No. 1" you must realize
that you're really asking Mr. Ern to
open the gates to a greater
population of No. 1 class. It's just
that simple.