Commentary: Pre-graduation bucket list around Rice athletics

By Casey Michel     5/16/10 7:00pm

I don't have many regrets from my college days, but one sticks out like Brian Cushing in a banned-substance test. It was three-and-a-half years ago, my greenness showing loudly on my University of Oregon shirt as I climbed the steps of Autry Court to watch a men's basketball game against the Ducks. I hadn't shaken my original love for UO, and it was only after hours of ribbing that I'd realized my fois gras, er, faux pas. Not that you needed a glimpse into my collegiate journal - here are your requisite Ken Griffey Jr. and "One Tree Hill" name-drops - but I bring up this embarrassment to illustrate the fact that there are a few things about Rice sports, and college sports in general, that you need to know. For starters, always, always root for Rice. I don't care if your name is Rudy Ruettiger or if you literally bleed Longhorn orange (Longhorange?) - this is your school, and these are your teams. But more than that, these are your classmates, so for the sake not merely of victory but for the ties that bind us to one another, for the blanket that covers all of us in the Rice community, root them on. They not only appreciate it, they thrive on it, and you'll find that you've made some friends along the way.

But that's stuff I'm sure you already knew. You're at Rice, after all, and it's only the occasional dimwit like yours truly who slips through the cracks. There are a couple of particulars you're going to want to keep in mind, a couple of other ticks on the bucket list, as you traipse through your four years here. To wit:

Paint up for at least one football game. The number of participants doesn't matter, and the permutations are endless, from "OWLS" to "HEY COUGAR HIGH, RICE GIRLS MAY BE UGLY BUT AT LEAST THEY'RE NOT PREGNANT." And it's not just the dudes, as girls can always bust out their rattiest Brandi Chastain bra - and I'm sure they'll get a discount if they walk into Sherwin-Williams with just that on.

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After you've washed off, or after your tan lines from the giant letter have faded, bake in the bleachers of the soccer stadium. The women aren't half bad, but moreover, seeing these soccer matches in person will turn your Texan gaze outward; a wide world awaits beyond the hedges and 99 percent of it watches soccer, so you might as well get a head-start if you can. Plus, it's a great conversation starter for that girl in your English class - who, odds are, is on the soccer team.

As winter rolls around, go to Tudor Fieldhouse, and bring your friends. This is my last column for the Thresher, so I can berate you - yes, you, on your living room sofa, absentmindedly scrolling through the DVR for "Lost," - for not going to more basketball games. Tudor is a gleaming structure; it is Brochstein without all the pretension, yet often with fewer people. If you're going to join the Autry Army for the pizza, then at least watch the damn game. Our guys have serious talent, and the women just had one of the most remarkable turnarounds in recent memory. Don't let matriculation be the only time you're in Tudor.

Of course, the winter months will inevitably drag by slowly, because baseball, Rice's pi?ce de résistance, beckons with the spring. So do as much as you can at Reckling. Rent a box. Sit in the dugout. Lounge on the hill, cooler in tow. Go to as many games as you can, because there's nothing like grabbing a bite from the bubble-gum lady - you'll know her when you see her - to make that Rendon-Ratterree-Comerota double play all the sweeter.

Oh, and run the bases naked, but preferably not during the seventh-inning stretch. (And you might want to avoid sliding, too.)

Of course, the games don't run continuously throughout the week. So while you're not Baker 13-ing around third or scrubbing paint from your armpits, try a couple of these on:

Name your first child - or your hamster, or your car, or anything you can - after James Casey. Because, seriously, how sweet would it be to swagger up to a bartender, order a Thor, down your double-shot of Everclear and then smash it with a hammer?

Find MK Bower a job. Seriously, this guy has gotten the shaft twice in the last two years, first from the Houston Chronicle and then from our own athletic department. The man's writing is crisp and clean, and he is the Schwab of Rice athletics. Now floating in the ether, his talent and knowledge are too valuable to fall from campus, and I know there are a few of you reading this who need a communication maestro.

Take the time to hit up the non-mainstream sports. Golf, tennis, swimming, track - for all the reasons stated above, plus the fact that your taunts will actually be heard by the opposing teams. For starters, SMU's swimming team would rival East Germany's in terms of facial hair, and Tulsa's men's tennis team is a bunch of pretty-boy twits afraid to mess up their cuticles.

And lastly, and perhaps more importantly, go to Omaha. Don't put it off, assuming Rice has a ticket to the College World Series is cinched, as last year's swoon can attest. Wayne Graham won't be around much longer, but there's something reinvigorating about Omaha's sun that, in just the right light, makes the wrinkles in Graham's Father Time face soften just a bit.

So do these things, and go to these games, and you'll have taken your collegiate experience to the next, universal level. Hell, you might actually enjoy some of the stuff.

Now, my experience was limited by lethargy and . well, I was going to say a heavy workload, but I was an English major, so I guess it was just laziness. Still, I can safely say that I accomplished all that I wanted to with Rice athletics - save for knocking over the ballboy on his way to that foul ball dropping from the netting - and Rice provides you ample opportunities that other universities forgo. None of these things are hard to do, so take advantage of them while you can.

And that UO shirt? Yeah, I burned it. How else do you think I got naked for Reckling?

Casey Michel is a Brown College alumnus and former Thresher editor in chief.

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