Back to the future part four: Yale sports at 400

A time traveler takes stock of Bulldog sports in the next century.

BY JOSH DRIMMER

You were told a few years ago that Yale was spending $500 million to upgrade its sciences. You believed it, naïve college students that you are, never suspecting that half of that half-billion went to the construction of neither a monorail to Science Hill, nor a new intergalactic studies department, but to a time machine. Yes, since approximately 1985 (the year Back to the Future debuted, of course), Yale scientists have been working on the technology, and with the help of a car-loving friend of mine (and a true urban studies major), I managed to get my hands on the prototype: a souped-up Bentley.

I saw some amazing things in the year 2101, and came back with a really cool hoverboard (yes, Back to the Future II was correct), but unfortunately, if I told you about most of them, the course of history would be changed forever. Biff would get the sports almanac and all would be ruined, so I can only focus on an irrelevant topic: sports. Unfortunately, since I couldn't get express written consent from MLB, the NFL, the NHL, the NBA, or the International Rollerball Association, we'll have to stick mainly to Yale sports. Prepare for a future shock.

MARISA BASS/YH

BULLDOG FOOTBALL AT THE QUATERCENTENARY, believe it or not, is back to winning ways we haven't seen since the days of Walter Camp, class of 1882; in fact, considering there were all of three other football teams back then, Yale football is actually better than ever. Some say the second dynasty began when tight end Eric Johnson, JE '01, took his first steps toward the Hall of Fame with the San Francisco/San Bernadino 49ers, and talented white guys everywhere aspired to be Bulldogs.

This, of course, is a blatant lie, though our Bulldogs experimented with a three-tight end, "Big White Guy" formation in 2021, in a perfect 0-12 season. No, Bulldog glory came from a combination of a new emphasis on sciences, particularly genetic engineering, and the International Olympic Committee's official statement of 2055: "Genetically engineered athletes are hereby barred from...(hey, that's a lot of money...) er, hereby allowed in the Olympics!" Shortly after, of course, genetically engineered athletes popped up in all sports, college sports included, and genetic leaders Yale, Stanford, and MIT became the mightiest sports schools in the nation, while traditional sports schools such as Penn State and the University of Florida were forced to become affiliates of the DeVry Institute. Once hampered by the Ivy League's lack of athletic scholarships, now Yale and all the other Ivies are, quite literally, athletic factories, with nine out of every 10 athletes born, raised, and designed right here in New Haven. Consequently, the Ivy League rejoined Division 1A sports, and while Stanford might dominate basketball, and MIT rules rollerball, Yale owns the gridiron.

The 2101 season was a typical Yale football season: 12 games, 12 victories, and then a romp through the NCAA playoffs (yes, they actually exist) culminating in a nail-biting victory over the No. 2 MIT Genomes in the Rose/Orange/Cotton/Fiesta/Sugar/Amazon.com Bowl. Led by quarterback Brian Dowling, version 2.7, DC '02, and star receiver Jerry Riceington, HC '01, the fearsome Bulldog offense averaged an amazing 59.5 points per game, even breaking the NCAA record for largest margin of victory, 280-3, in the 2101 edition of The Game. (It is worth noting, however, that due to President George W. Bush's, DC '68, relentless pursuit of the Harvard Sucks! Act of 2075, Harvard became a community college for the elderly.)

The defense was a little more of a liability this season—the secondary was solid, but the defensive line, four 425-pounders created by overzealous scientists, was almost completely immobile, and after the third game of the season, a 38-0 drubbing of run-heavy Nebraska, the linemen, John, Paul, Mark, and Andre Giant, ACL '05, were forced to retire because their knees could no longer support them. Thankfully, the Eli offense was enough in the end, thanks to a little help from kicker Wilmington Heavyfoot, CC '03. In the closing seconds of the thrilling championship game, with the score knotted at 59, Heavyfoot booted a 73-yard field goal with length to spare. Both teams were relieved at Heavy-foot's amazing kick, however, because it averted sudden-death overtime, which now usually means just what it sounds like.

CREATING ATHLETES IS AN EXPENSIVE BUSINESS, for sports not as profitable as football, which always fills the 120,000-seat Deloitte & Touche Bowl and makes Yale gear the clothing of choice for kids and gangs everywhere, athletes are made the old-fashioned way: by parents. Of course, this means that most Yale teams play the old-fashioned way: not so well.

The basketball team actually made some noise in 2030, with a scrappy team led by NBA lottery pick D'Angelo Prince Hill, RB '30, grandson of Yale football star Calvin Hill, PC '69, and son of NBA star Grant Hill and R&B singer Tamia (who, needless to say, got to name him). With Hill averaging 33.9 points per game, best in the NCAAs, the Bulldogs not only won the Ivy League for the first time in unknown years, but they advanced all the way to the Elite Eight before falling to the defending national champions, the Gonzaga Bulldogs.

Since then, however, the Princeton Tigers have been an unstoppable force, thanks to the inexplicable, yet incredible, "quantum vortex back-door," an amazing scheme created with the collaboration of coaching legend Pete Newell, physics all-star Steven Hawking, and the works of "The Greatest," former Princeton professor Albert Einstein. In 2101, however, this unstoppable force met its immovable object in the Stanford Cardinal, led by a starting lineup with an average height of 7'9". The Cardinals beat the Tigers in the second round, 126-26. To their credit, most of the Tigers didn't cry.

Yale baseball, despite the amazing, "70 in 2070" season of Barris Bonds, SY '72, has gone the way of wrestling, swimming, and kung-fu dodgeball, not due to a lack of funds or a lack of players skilled in the crane style, but due to lack of interest. Simply put, Major League Baseball's colossal expansion to 90 teams, including the world-champion New Haven Ravens (victors of the 2100 World Series over, yep, the still-cursed Boston Red Sox), has made college baseball irrelevant, since almost every baseball player in America is either a major or minor leaguer. Thanks to the miracle of interchangable organs and body parts, and a nasty new knuckleball, the 116-year-old Danny Almonte continues to lead the pitching staff of the AL Latin America champs, the Santo Domingo Rolando Paulino All-Stars, and owns virtually every pitching record.

Men's and women's hockey, on the other hand, weren't played in 2101 for much odder reasons. The men's team is on probation for the incident immortalized by poet William Pope, BK '99, in the famous mock epic, "The Rape of the Women's Table." Women's hockey has ceased to exist anywhere stemming from the controversial 5-4 2030 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Messier. As Chief Justice Jesse Helms wrote in his majority decision, "Women's hockey? Come on, what's next? Women football players? Women singers?" From his deathbed, former Justice David Souter could only say, "Kill me now. Please."

I WISH YOU ALL COULD HAVE COME WITH ME INTO the future, although, frankly, I'm very, very frightened by it all: the intense heat of global warming, the linebackers with 3.4 speed, the violent supercriminal terrorizing the nation who looks oddly like Wesley Snipes with blond hair. I guess the only advice I can pass on to you all was what my 120-year-old future self told my present self: "Kid, stop cheering for the Red Sox now. It ain't happening." Wiser words have never been spoken.

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