On campus today, the students in my Rituals and Traditions class enjoyed a group day. Next Thursday they’ll be presenting their work and recommendations to the athletic department, and we used the time to start putting together the first few finishing touches on their work. Everyone looks calm about it, which both pleases me and makes me just a little bit nervous.
In Criticism, I reacted to last week’s student suggestions. Someone said we should watch a gymnastics documentary. I searched around and settled on the first episode of “Simone Biles Rising.”
It has, for my money, one of the better cliffhangers in a documentary. The class actually groaned, almost as one, when the credits rolled. This was a good example of some of the media aesthetics we’ve been talking about, and also gets into some other mediated effects, and editorial choices.
We got home just in time for a quick ride. We did our first river run of the year. Down and back is 15 miles, and you can get back in time to clean up for dinner at an almost reasonable hour and, happily, we’re not even racing the daylight on that route at the moment.
You can tell this is when we are on the back from the river because my lovely bride is riding from the left to right.
That’s how web browsers work, right?
I’m still living in the happy memories of our wonderful Irish vacation. So, I’m sharing extra videos that we didn’t get to at the time. It was a great vacation. I have a lot of footage. This will go on for some time. Enjoy it with me, won’t you?
Just time for an update with the kitties. Here’s Phoebe being disturbed mid-snooze on my lovely bride’s legs.
And here’s Poseidon who could not be bothered to be bothered, while he sleeps on my knees.
Both of the kitties are doing great. They’d just like to go back to their snoozing now.
I’m still living in the happy memories of our wonderful Irish vacation. So, I’m sharing extra videos that we didn’t get to at the time. It was a great vacation. I have a lot of footage. This will go on for some time. Enjoy it with me, won’t you?
In Rituals and Traditions today we talked about the role of myths in sport. I started with talking about the two greatest Jacksons in sport, Andrew and Bo.
I told them I know two of the men in that intro, and would believe them. I have heard one of the stories mentioned there from multiple sources, told just differently enough to seem credible. But the truth of stories sometimes isn’t the most important thing, even for people looking for ontological truth. Maybe especially for them. Sometimes, the telling is the truth, and that’s why myths are important.
So I told them about a bunch of the myths around my alma mater. There’s the train thing and the pajama parade. A number of students, the story goes, snuck out in their pajamas and greased the railroad tracks so the train bringing their opponents couldn’t stop. The train had to pull in at the next station, the players had to lug their equipment five or six miles back to town, were exhausted, and got shut out 45-0. The story goes that the visitors were so offended they refused to play the next year. The story dates to the 1890s, but you can’t find anything at all about it in the historical record until the 1930s. Good story, though.
I told the two or three stories about rolling the corner. I gave them all three versions of the origin story of the phrase, “War Eagle.” I asked them which one they thought was correct. Everyone guessed that it was the most romantic story. That one was made up by Jim Phillips, a college newspaper editor. I showed them his copy. (He later urged various university people to work to make sure that his story didn’t get accepted as the truth. They still highlight his story. Well, part of his story. The version I learned when I was a senior in high school and getting ready to enroll goes a step further. Someone improved on his myth!)
I talked about myths from other universities, too, and some of the great stories that major league baseball gives us as myth. Some of them evolve much like the old gossip games. Some of them are quite deliberate. Both are, to me, fascinating in their implications. A friend just told me about the origin story of a new mascot, Noigel. No one will believe that one, of course, because it’s about a mascot, but it demonstrates to us the power of our stories. I hope the class was picking up on that today.
I drove it home with The Gipper, which works because, true or not, it’s accurate enough to at least blend with what we know. And we want to believe.
(Rudy, by the way, is largely cinematic and not perfectly truthful. Sorry.)
Did Rudy read that plaque and do his little impersonation? Probably not. Did Knute Rockne have that moment with George Gipp? Historians disagree. We’re pretty sure (much of) it is inspired by the movie.
Is that plaque even there in the Irish locker room? Yes it is.
Does Notre Dame know where they got the nickname, The Fighting Irish? It comes from one of several places, maybe. I reeled off a few of those, and asked for their thoughts on which one it might be. I don’t know. I know which one I want it to be. But all of that, I said, gets back to identity, doesn’t it?
One of my students said I should do a class just on myth. I’d love to; I doubt I’d be allowed to.
A study by AI risk management platform Alethea into the surge in artificial intelligence-generated fake content, dubbed “AI slop,” has warned sports teams, leagues and fans of the risks posed by increasingly sophisticated digital misinformation.
Retired NFL player Jason Kelce never said 2026 Super Bowl halftime singer Bad Bunny’s critics were “a bad fit for America’s future”.
The Reuters Inside Track newsletter is your essential guide to the biggest events in global sport. Sign up here.
San Francisco 49ers tight end George Kittle never ranted about slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk and politics in football.
However, thousands of people believed they did and that is the problem.
Well, sure it is. The students recognize that. They’re worried about it. They should be. That let me work in this little explainer focusing on Jaden Ivey.
Sometimes when the different pieces click together it is quite satisfying.
You can probably tell, but I’m one of those annoying campus spirit guys. I’ve always held that you learn a lot from class, but the rest of the college experience is the most educational and the most influential and the most memorable. That’s what makes the drive in worth it, where you make the friends, build the lasting memories, the stuff that can fill your heart with cheer later in life, the sort of thing that encourages alumni to be donors.
Or, put another way, I know of one alumni who wanted to make donations because of my pedagogy. But a lot more people are thinking of other things when they get ready to donate. And so we were out an event this evening and the marching band rushed the stage.
If the marching band “crashed” events from time to time, that’d be fun. I want every part of a student’s time on campus be about their studies or about memorable events full of good cheer.
Maybe I’m not alone in that. Maybe one day I’ll be allowed to bend more of my work that direction. It’d be better than rowing aimlessly.
Tonight’s event was a special one. It was one of those nights when some of the superior networkers made a bit of magic happened and a folk hero turned up.
Started late, ran long. The food in the VIP room was still great. My current hypothesis is that all events should use the guest of honor’s menu.
And by business, I mean the usual. Cleaning. Fixing problems. Waiting for it to warm up.
But, already, the change in color is an immediate thrill.
Until the chores and the bills and the replacing the thises and thats begin.
Elsewhere, this is the pentultimate week of classes, which means busy busy!
I’m still living in the happy memories of our wonderful Irish vacation. So, I’m sharing extra videos that we didn’t get to at the time. It was a great vacation. I have a lot of footage. This will go on for some time. Enjoy it with me, won’t you?
It started out as a joke, I guess. My godsisters-in-law (just go with it) have five highly active children between them and everyone works and travels and lives full lives and so they are calendar fiends. We get calendar invites for things to which we are invited. And we started getting calendar invites to things which are obvious jokes. Some family things aren’t meant for me, but they’re legendary, and so you’re always welcome, thanks but no thanks. You know the sort. Also, I don’t partake in handbag bingo.
But I do enjoy a good game of bingo. Maybe I should go to that.
Anyway, sometime just before last Christmas I got a calendar invite to one of the kid’s concert performance at the minor league ball park. He was taking part in an orchestra and of course we were going to that. THat was tonight.
So we got to the venue and got seat just behind home plate and our guy and his viola and a bunch of his classmates and students from other schools, apparently, all flood the field and they play their song. It was great. It was cute. Parents were proud.
Everyone had a nice time.
I met the mascot, who took a selfie with my phone.
After the performance was the game, of course. It’s high A, and the starting pitcher has been at this level since 2021. In the first inning he hit the leadoff pitcher, got the second guy to ground into a double play, walked the third batter on four straight. The next batter drove that guy in, but was thrown out at third. It was a chaotic top of the first inning.
I looked at both rosters, the oldest guy on either team was born in May of 1999. Only four of the guys in either dugout are 20th century kids.
At one point, a right fielder lost a ball in the sun. The ball was on the ground at the time.
High A ball is great fun!
Eventually the godnephews and godniece (just go with it) came and sat with us. The visiting pitcher was throwing a no-hitter through five. His team was out ahead. A reliever came in and the wheels flew off.
This is how you know the wheels flew off. The alternate mascot makes his way onto the field. Mr. Celery happened by accident. He has no mythological backstory. They’re a bit sketchy on the actual backstory. The prevailing version goes that there was some health food initiative in years past, and whoever was putting that on left a few mascots behind. The team found it in storage, and then decided, for no reason at all, to put an intern in that outfit. And every time the home team scores Mr. Celery comes out and runs around a bit.
And, tonight, he ran around a lot.
That reliever recorded one inning pitched, and the loss. He allowed five runs on three hits, two walks, and two strikeouts. He now has a 30.86 ERA.
Sitting behind us was a fraternity from one of the local universities. They were there supporting one of the kids who was involved in the pregame festivities. They were loud and funny and pleasant. They started the wave. They invented a new cheer.
Our godnephews were completely taken with them and the frat boys welcomed them into their night. Those guys were great. They were very kind and generous to the kids, and they didn’t necessarily have to be. They indulged their enthusiasms, so there was the 2nd grader, coaching the fraternity into doing the wave, and, thus, the entire stadium. He and his brother started picking spots for the new cheer, “Get your rocks up!” which involved throwing your two fists into the air and making a lot of noise. They were giving the boys high fives and posed for photos and you would have thought they hung the actual moon.
At one point, I looked at my godbrother-in-law-in-law (just go with it) and said of his son, “I believe he’s found his tribe.”
Indeed, I think the 2nd grader now knows the secret handshake.
Somehow he got a foul ball. He got one of the field crew to sign his ball for him. All the kids got to high five the mascots. They did just about everything but launch the fireworks.
