Tuesday, September 4, 2007

The Best Part About Syracuse

Only have time for a short post right now, but I want to get it out before I forget.

Last night I dreamed I was visiting my middle school, and I ran into a woman I knew as being the mother of perhaps the most athletically gifted student in the school. She recognized me, and asked me what the best part about Syracuse was, and then, of course, I woke up.

I actually had to think about the answer to that one.

I've settled on it being the amazing people I've met--and I really have met some really awesome people.

However, there's another aspect that I think should get mentioned.

Despite a football team that's won five games total in the past two years, and 0-1 this year, Syracuse is a sports school.

Basketball seems to be the one thing that really truly unites the campus, but it's not just Syracuse sports that gets the campus going.

This is where Yankees/Sox is at its best, outside of Fenway and the Bronx.

Last week was the first week of class. You think everyone would be anxious about that, anxious to see just how much work they'd have to do this semester (I have way, way too much for a semester in which I have to apply to grad school AND be a bridesmaid!) However, as I walked across campus, there was a tension that could be felt.

Every fourth or fifth guy, and even a fair number of girls, was wearing some sort of Yankees or Red Sox hat or shirt. No one said anything, but no one had to.

In 2004, everyone, and I mean EVERYONE watched the ALCS. At the end of game seven, some students reportedly went and lit bonfires on the Quad--the center of campus.

There's no doubt that this year will be more of the same.

Heck, even my geography professor got involved (albeit for the Phillies, who have a minority fan base here).

In a city that can boast only the second-to-last-place Chiefs (Toronto's AAA team), Yankees-Sox is what it should be.

It doesn't look like it at first, you have to dig a bit, but baseball lives here.


Anyway, I've got to get to class. I've got the sort of professors that actually care if you're on time or not.

7 comments:

  1. Professors that care!! haha
    I attended the University of Florida [another Orange and Blue school, right?] and one day, I was bopping along campus, heading for my van to cruise on home and stretch out for awhile before heading to work at the grocery store. Who should I bump into but my African History Professor, who politely informed me that I was heading in the wrong direction for class!! Yikes!! So I acted like it was earlier and had been heading to lunch, lost in thought evidently... had a nice chat with the fellow, and attended class. Busted!!
    Gainesville is a good sports town, too. Yeah, championships and all [yes, paid some dues!!]... during the famous Bucky Dent game, we played the radio broadcast on the PA system at the store [did that for the 1980 Olympic Hockey SF and final, too].
    Go Yankees! MGW.

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  2. Charles: Ack! Doesn't sound like fun!

    I think the worst is when you're in a class you're only taking because you have to, but it's small enough that the professor knows everyone by name, so you can't goof off and read the campus paper...

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  3. I moved to Kingston, NY 6 months ago and was kind of shocked at the lack of red-sox fans considering it's pretty close to connecticut and massachusettes. Mostly Yankees or Mets fans really.

    I think when I lived in Manhattan there were more sox fans (percentage-wise) than there are here. The free paper even did a story once on the number of red-sox themed bars in the city. yuck!

    Prior to Manhattan, I lived in Easton PA, which is mostly people who don't care for baseball, yankee fans, and a few phillies fans. I'm sure the "people who don't care for baseball" would turn into phillies fans the second they make a post-season though. Eagles fans outnumber Giants fans by a lot.

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  4. Saucy--That's certainly interesting, in Syracuse it's a pretty even split, though it might be because we have so many from the NYC area and so many from the Boston area.

    At home it's mostly Yankees/Mets. There are some Philly fans, but North Jerseyans tend to the New York teams. After all, for us, NY >>> Philly!

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  5. it was pretty much yanks/mets where i grew up in jersey, just south of toms river. probably just as far from philly than to NY. but most kids had parents who moved 'down the shore' (like mine). phillies fans were a rare breed there. they'd get teased.

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  6. Saucy--strange as it sounds, I've only been down the shore a couple times! My parents never liked it much...

    It is amazing though, how much North Jersey and South Jersey are two separate worlds...

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  7. haha. i know what you mean. but i think i like to think of jersey as about 10 different worlds...

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