I understand that the word “fan” is short for the term “fanatic” but after reading this short blurb in the AJC last week, it got me to thinking what people’s priorities in life should be. Now it’s been approved that you can put your college logo on your coffin (insert sarcastic ‘Hooray’ here).
When robot archaeologists, after the Terminators take over and destroy mankind, dig up our coffins 300 years from now, they’ll find some plain urns and coffins, maybe some adorned with a family crest, perhaps some with religious artifacts, and then there will be some with a “Go Dawgs. Woof Woof Woof” lettering on it along with the University of Georgia logo.
While I still can’t justify putting anything on me in tattoo form, I understand why people do it. Is a college logo in tattoo form any worse than it being on your coffin for eternity? I guess that is in the eye of the beholder. But for me, as much as I loved my time at Bradley University and I was fortunate enough to find my future wife there, I simply can’t imagine putting a “B” on my urn. Who knows what could happen in the future? Bradley could turn out a few more Matt Hales, tarnishing its reputation forever, and here I’d be, stuck in the afterlife with a logo of a school that fermented the White Power movement in central Illinois.
The thing is I daresay most of these people won’t be putting these college logos on their Post-Life Container because of their feelings about a school’s academic standing or reputation. Nope. A majority of people will do this based on their allegiances to a school’s football or basketball program – something 99.99% of them were never physically a part of. They just happened to live vicariously through unpaid student athletes playing with a stupid ball. Someone at Bradley won’t put it on their coffin because of the kickass, nationally renowned debate team they field year after year.*(see note) It will be because they made a lot of money in an NCAA basketball tournament pool the year Hersey Hawkins put Bradley on the map for most of America in the late 1980s.
* Since 1979, Bradley University has had one hundred and fifteen individual national champions. No other team has attained as many individual national champions. Since 1980, Bradley has won nationals thirty-three times. This record of success is unmatched by any other college forensics team in the United States.