Horizon

Change is Bad

Oh, it’s a revelation when a guy who thinks he’s too smart to care about college sports – or any sports for that matter – wakes up in the morning, checks the news, and gets a charge when he learns the local squad has won its first game ever in the NCAA tournament. Odd business to find yourself taking some pride in the success of a program you’d prefer didn’t succeed. I keep forgetting that winning is fun.

I like thinking of the University of Vermont as that small gem at the top of the hill in Burlington, the school of John Dewey and the occasional Nobel Prize winner. Its academic credentials aren’t exactly Olympian, and it does have a record of modest athletic competitiveness (actually, I think they’re pretty good at hockey); but last year, when we took the youngest to the campus tour event, they asked the 200 or so prospective applicants if they were considering UVM for its sports and not a hand went up.

There’s a game this afternoon (I don’t know who they’re playing; and notice how I don’t write “who we’re playing”?), and, if by some miracle they win, I’ll be thrilled. But that wonderful campus will be changed forever. For me, it will still be the home of Ira Allen Chapel, Royall Tyler Theatre, and the Bailey/Howe Library (a lot of happy hours there when my girlfriend was a student); for a good many others, it’ll be a basketball school. I wonder if they know what they’ve gotten into.