Let’s be honest here: American University isn’t exactly known for its athletics. We’re more known for our internships, being Judge Judy’s alma mater and, of course, Letts’ famous rats. Why bother visiting the pandas when you’ve got a zoo right next door?
But athletics aren’t exactly our claim to fame. Sure, our basketball team was in March Madness this year (only for a day, but hey, it was nice to be invited), but the only time we ever had a line outside the door was when former President Barack Obama showed up. They had to start resorting to bribing us with pizza and gift cards to attend games and haven’t been able to get any more famous figures to pull up. I mean, come on, I know we can’t get former presidents at every game, but you’d think we’d at least be able to score Pete Buttigieg or something. What’s he even up to now, anyway?
In fact, one survey found that zero percent of AU students attended a single basketball game outside of the one with Obama. Now, was this a real survey, or did I just purposefully only ask my least athletic friends (I can say this fully knowing that I look less like an athlete and more like the human personification of an Excel spreadsheet)? Who’s to say? But still, AU athletics need some flash, some spice, some pizzazz. So, as a message to President Jonathan Alger, let me break down what we need in order to regain supremacy in collegiate athletics. One word: bull riding.
Hear me out! I know this sounds like a bad idea at first, but it’s exciting, a money-making machine and much like Terrace Dining Room chicken, it doesn’t have blood in it… most of the time. Like pretty much all of the time! I’m just saying, so many AU students are studying every move of international wars that they just can’t get excited about how well a volleyball team’s doing unless there’s a little mortal peril. It’s not that they’re rooting for people to die, of course, but nobody talks about the Titanic because of the onboard catering.
So here’s the game plan for how this would work: Everyone will mill into Bender Arena with crowd sizes like you’ve never seen before, I mean, they’re gonna look AI-generated. Then, the show commences. We can introduce the riders with a great deal of fanfare (fire, music, they can all do a little dance with Clawed). And then, one by one, they’ll get on a bull and, just like the professionals, see if they can stay on for eight seconds.
Everyone can root for their favorite riders (or, if you’re from Chicago, for the bulls) to see who can make it the longest. This thing could be huge. Imagine the publicity. AU will have the best bull riding team in the nation, for the simple reason that nobody else has a bull riding team.
And like any other great sports team, we’ll have stars. Not the players, no, they’ll be dead — sorry, I mean they’ll have free tuition. But the bulls. The bulls! We could name them awesome names, like Demon Slayer, Alger’s Anger or Big Chili. Do you think I’m gonna forget Big Chili? Now that’s the name of a star-in-the-making. I guarantee you, if we bring in Big Chili, he’ll be on the “Tonight Show” in a Lip Sync Battle with the Costco Guys before the year’s out. I wish they could all be named Big Chili, but alas, that would decrease the inherent specialty of a bull named Big Chili. Demon Slayer is a perfectly acceptable name. We can’t all be LeBron James. Someone’s gotta be the guy next to LeBron, whatever his name is, I don’t know, it doesn’t matter because he’s not LeBron.
If we can’t do bull riding, fineeee, I get it. I have some counter-proposals of sports we could dominate. We could try curling! A quick Google search tells me it’s popular in Canada, or as it might be labeled on Google Maps by the time this article gets published, Maple Glazed America. I’ve also been looking a great deal into squash — it’s very popular in certain online circles. Now, will squash bring students to Bender in droves? God no, but I don’t know any prominent squash teams, so at least if we did it, we could be one of the best at it.
So that’s my pitch. This is the way for AU to regain athletic supremacy and give students their much-needed bread and circuses. This is the way for AU to be known as something other than “the one next to GW.” And more importantly, this is how we bring Obama back. Right? It’s got to. Please, Obama, please!
Eric Steinberg is a freshman in the School of Public Affairs and a satire columnist for The Eagle.
This article was edited by Jasmine Shi, Alana Parker and Abigail Turner. Copy editing done by Luna Jinks, Olivia Citarella, Emma Brown and Nicole Kariuki.
