Davenport

Last place? Is Davenport too beautiful to leave, except for classes? Perhaps. But no, I think the problem is leadership. What happened to the position meetings for touch football and the team dinners for the tennis champions of the past? Where are the days of yesteryear when the soccer team spent the week pouring over the videos of previous games? It's all about preparation. However, in order to prepare, we athletic D-porters must learn to better anticipate our enemies' tactics. Having played in a number of games this year, I can say that there is one tactical mistake Davenport continues to make. We continue to assume that other colleges know the subtleties of the IM game that only we have figured out. For example, we understand that the soccer fields are small and that bringing only seven or eight players will open up the field and lead to more fluid play. However, our opponents always ignorantly bring the typical and boring 11 participants, and our whole plan is shot. Similarly, we know that it makes more sense to forfeit either coed or men's football, because we can concentrate all our talent on one team. Unfortunately other colleges have not been so astute.

So we are forced to compensate for our opponents' stupidity with our superior talent, although we do have fewer players. This week, we have done just that (or at least come close). Women's soccer, helped by Pierson, has been tearing up the competition whenever they've had the numbers to play. Led by Gracey "Pain ain't no thang" Nagle '00, Karen "Kick butt with style" Rinderknecht '00, and Renee "All you see is my smoke trail" Delphin '01, the women have been showing the opposition that good looks go hand in hand with toughness.

Both coed and men's football have been showing some razzle-dazzle led by the genius captains Simon "How to be a player" Rodberg '00 and Loren "I ain't no Andy" Griffith '98, with a supporting cast of Will "ya look at that hike!" Durbin '01, Catherine "Calm and collected" Price '01, and Tanya "Keep this play on the down" Loh '00. In a similar vein, men's soccer has looked good and all the players have fought hard. Led by Jon "I hate it when people" Weinbach '98, Mike "You know what we have to do..." Kestenbaum '98, Tim Jacobi '00 (that's all that need be said), Oliver "I don't even need cleats" Mihaljevic '01, Ken "I think I bumped my shoulder on the crossbar" Osowski '98, Trevor "I only need one leg anyway" Hawkins '99, the "Mad Brothers" Mazur '00 and '98, Tim "Fr" O'Meara '00, and John "My thigh is bigger than your waist" Caserta '01, the boys have been training for the Ironman by playing 8 on 11. Even Adam "Mononucleosis never stopped me before" Benforado '01 has been able to survive the increased running. He did say, though, that his favorite game was our all-out battle with Calhoun, when we were anchored for the first time all year by our goalie Henry "The Iron Curtain" Whitaker '00, and we even had a substitute (but no ref). Let's go D-port. If you ask me, the cellar just doesn't seem to fit us too well.

(Compiled by John Davenport, who returned from his grave after seeing the Tyng Cup standings.)

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