DP Swamis: The quotes are real. So are the turbans.

As weak as the Tigers have been in the past two years, though, we Swamis are not talking about Princeton football. We refer, of course, to PElvis, a group of Princeton students dedicated to spreading the magic of the King. Or rather, a group of Princeton students that was dedicated to spreading the gospel from Graceland. In 1995, PElvis maintained an active membership of 200 card-carrying undergraduates. Today, PElvis members number a grand total of no pretentious Princetonians. Zilch. Zip. None. Zero. The exact number of goal posts that will be torn down at Princeton Stadium November 21 when the clock runs out on the '98 Ivy season. Coincidence? We Swamis think not. In the previous two seasons, the once-mighty Tigers have looked less like the svelte Elvis of postage-stamp fame and more like the obese, sequined, kung-fu kicking Elvis going through the motions in 1970s Vegas. Between 1869 and 1995, the boys at Princeton compiled a mark of 724-300-50. In '96, they sputtered to a 3-7 finish. Last year, the Tigers managed just two Ancient Eight wins. Last week, though, Princeton snapped out of its funk and dropped Columbia, 20-0, to bring the Tigers to a three-way deadlock with Penn and Harvard atop the league standings. Is Princeton for real? Or was last week's win just one last assertion on a downward spiral. Do the Tigers have a claim to the throne, or will they end up dead in a Memphis bathroom, underwear around their collective ankles ^ la the King, by dropping their last three games of the season? To find out, we hopped on our carpets and headed for West Virginia Medical school and former PElvis president Brian Policano, Princeton '95. "I know Princeton's not having the best of years this year," said Policano, who is obviously keeping careful tabs on the Ivy League-leading Tigers. Policano, who calls himself a "traditionalist" and was sad to see old Palmer Stadium replaced by the flashy new Princeton Stadium, was quick to point out the King's affinity for football. "Elvis was a huge football fan," Policano said. "He had a saying, 'Life is like football -- it's life in four-quarters time'." What? "I think Elvis would be all for tearing down Palmer," Policano said. "A lot of people accused him of being set in his ways, but Elvis liked change." Though we enjoyed making small talk with Policano -- who wrote his senior thesis on Elvis' influences on American literature -- we Swamis didn't have time for all of Policano's musings on Elvis. After all, we had business to attend to. So we popped the question. "The Tigers will win, 21-17," Policano told us. This bit of wisdom, of course, comes from the same guy who told us: "Is Elvis still alive? I'm not refuting that. Death is a harsh word for me and my fellow PElvis alumni. I don't consider August of '77 to be when Elvis died. I refer to it as the 'time that Elvis left us'." Thanks, Brian, but we'll take our chances with Penn this week.