Ivy Roundup: We're tougher than Mr./Ms. Penn Edition

We here at Ivy Roundup looked outside the office window, noticed how ass cold it was last weekend and decided that it was time to stop complaining and get tough. We bought tickets to the Mr. and Ms. Penn contest, got gym memberships, went running in the snow, rapelled from Grad Tower A and let Rodman kick us ten times (= $2 million). Now we are ready to bring you Ivy Roundup's ode to toughness. Overrated of the Week In our last edition, Roundup correctly predicited that Cornell's impressive 3-1 start to its season was a sham. Now hovering at 8-6, Cornell is headed for Ivy Group mediocrity yet again. No amount of snow, solitude or bridge jumping will make them tough. This week we go after even bigger pretenders, the Big Green from New Hampswhere? Our hack team of researchers spent hours finding out that Dartmouth's 11-4 start is their best start since the 1957-58. That bunch started 17-1 en route to a 22-5 season and an NCAA tournament berth. 11-4 isn't bad, but check out their schedule! Dartmouth's schedule is loaded with losers. Those 11 wins came against Laughayette (5-11), Holy Cross Batman! (3-13), Wagner (6-9), New Hampshire (5-11) -- you get the idea. While Penn travels to tournaments to play Florida and Arizona, Dartmouth travels to play Buffalo. Roundup thinks Dartmouth should get tough. Stop playing everyone in the Patriot League –– the Big Green would be tied with Colgate at 4-0 in the league––and try playing Penn's schedule. The Quakers have played teams in the toughest conferences in the country, the SEC, ACC, Big East, Atlantic-10 and Pac-10, and until Dartmouth starts playing against top teams and stops playing Middelbury, they are the Wannabe of the Week. "I'm a Belgian beer scientist, so naturally I was attracted to Dartmouth," Penn freshman Ben Groverman said. "Yeah, I got in. But you know, strength of schedule counts for a lot, and well, with a schedule like theirs, I just couldn't have lived with myself if I had gone there. Oh, and they gotta get a bench." We couldn't agreed with Beer Boy more. The Big Green's loss last night to mighty Vermont showed why they can't survive a whole season. The five starters all scored in double figures, but the stat line for the bench wasn't pretty. Thirty-one minutes, one-for-eight from the field, three points, seven boards and ten fouls. Get a bench, get a schedule, get your ass down here and try playing us. Check Your Shorts of the Week Roundup was aghast to hear the sad tale of Antonio Reynolds-Dean of the University of Rhode Island. During their game at the Providence Civic Center after Penn's bi-annual spanking of Brown, poor Tony stunned the fans by playing with a brown streak down the back of his shorts. Reynolds-Dean noticed his accident, but not before much of the crowd had seen it. Fortunately he got a chance to change into fresh shorts at half ime. Roundup knows the Providence Civic Center is a tough place to play and that the history of the building is awe-inspiring, (go Providence Bruins), but come on! Tough Mascot of the Week The toughest job Saturday night had to be that of the St. Joseph's mascot. The Hawk kept flapping his wings for the entire two hour game, not even resting his free arm while shaking hands with the other. All that flapping certainly brought him a lot of attention. "I couldn't focus on the game, all I could do was watch him flap. It was amazing," said Hawk Boy Geoffrey in an Ivy Roundup exclusive interview after the game. "Sure, the game was close, but how 'bout that Hawk. He was the star," quoth Hawk Boy. We weren't that impressed, but the Hawk still earns Tough Mascot of the Week. "Ivy League" Education of the Week, Part 1 Ever conscious of our grammar/punctuation, the Roundup staff recently invested in what purports to be "the complete reference for sports editors, writers, and broadcasters" -- a style guide. However, we were soon wondering if, perhaps, our $19 had been wasted (read: not spent on beer). First things first, being proud supporters of the often-Ivy winning teams of Penn, we thought we'd check out the page devoted to ours, the finest collegiate sports league. To our great dismay, we found several glaring errors. First, they listed the "Cornell Big Red" as a member of the league. Huh?! Isn't literacy of the student body still a prerequisite to being accredited as a university? Besides, Roundup was under the impression Cornell was phasing out its sports programs. Why else would they schedule Haverford and Iona? Ivy League Education of the Week, Part 2 But this was only the beginning of our difficulties with Sports: Style Guide and Reference Manual. It also includes the following pearls of wisdom about referring to the conference: " Ivy Group. Do not refer to as the Ivy League or Ivy Conference." Shame on you for thinking you attend an Ivy League university. At least it explains why there are more releases from the "Council of Ivy Group Presidents" shooting out of the DP fax machine than Brown students lining up for a "Make Your Own Tie-Dye" party. When the public gets wind of this generations-long terminological heresy (broken in Roundup), it will change American speech patterns forever. Imagine a young family in Greenwich, Conn. -- struggling to raise two children and an indoor swimming pool -- contemplating whether to send Kent and Missy to private school. "Honey," the mother says, "I know it may set our retirement back until we're 35, but it will help the children's chances of going to a school in the athletic league governed by the Council of Ivy Group Presidents." That's much better than Ivy League, thinks we. For your copy of Sports Style Guide write Triumph Books, Editorial Office, 644 South Clark St., Chicago, Ill., 60605. Now, back to the books -- you're an Ivy Grouper.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.