Here is No Why

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Dean's Cup (Updated for Accuracy)

September 6, 2006 12:38 PM

remember the day at orienation my entire class was filed into a huge room and people started talking at us. One of the people who spoke to us was then-SBA President Nate Lundby, or whatever his last name was. He was generally entertaining, and he told us about all the great things that the SBA (Student Bar Association) does. One of the things he did that I remember most clearly was say something like:

At most law school orientations, they tell you to look to your right and look to your left. And they tell you that, statistically speaking, one of those people won't be here when you graduate. Well, that's not the case here at Wisconsin. Here, if you look to your right and you look to your left, you might see someone that'll be your best friend, or someone that you'll marry. That's because Wisconsin students are more about collaboration than they are about competition. Here, we help each other rather than try to beat each other. And not just within the Law School. We work with everyone on campus to make things better. Except the Med School. They are evil.

(I've since been told that I've synthesized the speeches by Nate and the former Wisconsin Bar President. Still, I the basic message is intact, I believe.)

And so the foundation for the law students' irrational hatred of the med students was laid. And that rivalry is never more present than during the Dean's Cup, the annual competition between the law school and the med school. The Dean's Cup lasts almost a month and features events ranging from flag football to golf to bar trivia to Mario Kart.

At the time that Nate told us all about the Dean's Cup, the law school had won three years in a row. The law school has lost both of the years since I've been here - sort of like a reverse Harry Potter effect. Slytherin had been dominating Quidditch for several years before Harry's first year, when Gryffindor broke the trend and beat Slytherin.

To make matters worse, the Dean's Cup hasn't even been close since my class got here. We've been beaten by extremely wide margins.

And, to add insult to injury, the med students apparently brag not about their ability to beat us fairly but, rather, about their ability to cheat and get away with it.

Classmates, our objective is clear. We must beat the med school into submission. We must make them weep. We must make them pay for two years of cheating-induced, undeserved victory. This aggression will not stand, man. Let's kick their fucking asses.

And, failing that, let's take over their building.