Those Crazy Iowans

The rivalry between Iowa and Iowa State has moved from the football field to the scenic highways of Iowa. Iowa State has placed a billboard on the highway near the Iowa campus that declares the state of Iowa a "Cyclone Sate," and shows a picture of last year's Iowa State football team after its victory over Iowa. Iowa plans on getting back at their rivals by leaving a flaming bag of poop at the entrance to their student center.

Texas A&M is once again angry over the unauthorized use of their trademark "12th man." This time it's Yahoo!, which has an interactive section of it's World Cup coverage designed to get fans more involved called the "12th man" Five months ago A&M disputed the use of "12th man" by the Seattle Seahawks, but an agreement was later reached that allowed the Seahawks to use the term in its own region. Yahoo! defended its use of the term saying that nobody reads their World Cup coverage so it doesn't matter.

In other news...LSU is getting a million dollar supercomputer...A Boston University dean has an anger problem...

UNC Basketball On The Cutting Edge Of Technology

The University of North Carolina is changing their system of distributing basketball tickets. The tickets will now be distributed online through email and the new system eliminates the need for diehard fans to arrive hours before the game in order to get the best seats. Students like the new system, but said they would have preferred if the school had instead used the proposed system of awarding tickets to students who wrote the best anti-Duke haikus.

In other news...If you want to work at Taco Bell, don't work at the one near the University of Maryland...BYU has a folk dancing team, and they're performing at the U.S. embassy is Estonia...The Pac-10 is considering banning cheerleading stunts...College donations are on the rise...

More Bad News For ESPN

It's been a rough couple of months for ESPN. First, ESPN mobile phones are outsold by David Hasselhoff CDs, and now ESPN is losing part-time "Baseball Tonight" analyst Tino Martinez to a college coaching job. Martinez will join the University of South Florida coaching staff as a volunteer assistant. Not coincidentally, the team is coached by the brother of Martinez's wife. The job should be a welcome change from fighting over donuts with John Kurk and Jeff Brantley on the "Baseball Tonight" set. As for the show, I think they wont have any trouble finding somebody new to talk about how Albert Pujols is really really good.

Some Interesting College Courses

Last semester Michigan State University offered a little known course that might as well have been called "Digging up Famous People 101." It turns out that a number of MSU grad students and faculty helped police in their recent search for the body of Jimmy Hoffa. The students helped search specific areas of the 90 acre farm believed to hold the body. Nice job by the FBI getting college kids to do their manual labor for free.

The University of Alaska Anchorage has brought back its river rafting class. The class requires 30 hours on the river and counts as credit towards things such as an adventure leadership minor. I don't know how the school is going to attract premier athletes with non-academic classes this difficult.

In other news...Beck came to University of Georgia---with puppets!!...Al Gore is speaking at Syracuse at a discounted price of $75,000....Wharton will begin training the future leaders of Dubai...

The MIT Hackers Are At It Again

The braniacs at MIT have once again put their minds to good use. MIT Students hacked an online poll that was to decide where Alex Doonesbury, the daughter of the main character in the comic strip Doonesbury, would attend college. Thanks to the hackers MIT won the poll with 48% of the vote. Alex will begin attending MIT next year, and she will transfer a month later because all the kids spend their time hacking online polls.

In other news...J.J. Redick has been charged with a DUI. Apparently Redick's cancelled Halo date with Adam Morrison hit him harder than I thought...Some University of Oklahoma students have received a federal grant to make a video game...The University of Oregon has it's own version of Forest Gump...

How Not To Run A Bar

Here's a promotion for a bar that could have no bad consequences. Admit only women to your bar and allow them to drink for free. Then after two hours allow men to come in and let the games begin. A local University of Maryland bar is now in trouble for doing just this--apparently it didn't cross the owners mind that this could create an environment conducive to sexual assault. The owner claimed the event was to show appreciation for all its female patrons. I will now use every muscle in my brain to refrain from making a Duke lacrosse joke.

Speaking of Duke, in J.J. Redick's latest installment chronicling his journey towards the NBA draft, he reveals that he and Adam Morrison had to postpone their Halo date. But don't worry, the two ran into each other while shopping for clothes and they managed to go watch a UFC fight together. It's obviously going to take more than a rigorous pre-draft schedule to tear these two apart. They're like the Elaine and Puddy of the NBA draft.

In other news...The University of Texas has a famous rock on display...When University of Iowa students go home for the summer they have a habit of leaving their pets behind...The Kentucky basketball team has its own special interest group...BYU has its own racecar...

Oregon State Baseball Fans Love Beer

Oregon State baseball fans are an interesting bunch. Apparently there are many groups of OSU baseball fans who watch the games from outside the stadium. One of these groups, which stand on ladders behind the outfield wall, say one reason they do it is so they can drink beer without breaking any rules. I haven't consulted my AA manual, but standing on a ladder for a few hours just so you can drink may be a telltale sign of an alcohol problem.

Rutgers will reportedly spend $2.5 million to put nearly 700 video cameras in student housing buildings. Frankly I think this is a great idea that will improve efficiency. Now instead of having to wait for pictures of illicit activities to appear on thefacebook or other websites, the administration will have them right away.

In other news...Tony Blair's son is going to Yale...the Duke lacrosse team was reinstated.

Oh Those Crazy Hawkeyes

The Iowa baseball team has been cleared of hazing. The school found that there was no "mandatory participation" in recent photos that surfaced on the internet which showed team members naked except for "hats over their privates." The Iowa baseball team just likes to have a good time, that's all.

Meanwhile the Duke lacrosse team just can't stay out of trouble. A senior on the team has been charged with driving while impaired, misdemeanor possesion of marijuana, misdemeanor possesion of drug paraphernalia, and running a red light. The player was immedietely suspended from the team, but the team is still currently suspended---so the the new philosophical quandry is can you suspend somebody who is already suspended?

A bill is under consideration that would require all University of North Carolina schools to conduct extensive criminal background checks on all applicants. Of course as in most other situations, the background checks would not have any effect on highly touted athletic recruits.

In other news...Northeastern has a new president, and it's not Al Gore...Dell really likes the University of Texas...Be careful eating at restaurants near Penn...Texas A&M is getting funding for a new nuclear terrorism prevention program...Steve Spurrier is unhappy with "The World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party."

J.J. Redick Really Loves Utah

In his latest installment chronicling his journey towards the NBA draft, J.J. Redick reveals that he's interested in playing for the Jazz. This would indicate that Redick is cut from a different mold than former Duke player and frat house aficionado Reggie Love. Frankly, it seems like a win-win situation for both sides. Redick wont be the whitest guy on his new team, and the Jazz get a decent player despite using their pick on the token white guy. Redick also reveals that team interviews involve questions such as "What is 1-and-1?" and that he made "some stuff up" when he was asked to write a self description. All he needs is a posse and he just might make it in the NBA.

The University of Oregon is considering arming their campus police with tasrs. The police need tazers because according to one officer, their jobs now consist of "contacting bad guys." The tazers surely would have come in handy in helping to control this man at USC. After being seen by police urinating in public, the man fled and barridcaded himself in a raquetball court with a loaded gun. Strangely, nobody on the USC football team was involved with this firearm related incident. For more stories like these, here is Dartmouth's "best of" police blotter.