WITH THE first home football game quickly approaching, we will soon be able to say that the school year has truly begun. Everyone gathering together to pre-game on the Lawn or elsewhere around grounds, singing the Good Ole Song, alumni visiting the University and regressing back to their own college days: in sum, a fun event marked by time-honored traditions. The approach of this game, however, cannot help but remind us of an ongoing controversy -- "guys in ties, girls in pearls" versus the dreaded Sea of Orange.
Over the past several years since Al Groh took over as our head coach, the football program has tried to downplay the tradition of dressing up for football games. Indeed, nowhere on the athletic department's "Spirit of Virginia" web/site is dressing up for football games so much as mentioned under their list of the University's traditions. Instead, they have promoted a more NFL-oriented approach that has come to be known as the Sea of Orange. When it comes down to it, however, Virginia is quite simply not an NFL team and the "Sea of Orange" is a wholly inadequate fit for this school.
The University is first and foremost an institution of higher education with a strong heritage of Southern pride and tradition. We stress this status to prospective and incoming students, we point out the wide variety of clubs and a capella groups there are to join, and above all we point out that the University is a hard-working place full of bright and intelligent students eager to do nothing but learn. Yet even our great academic record does not fully encompass the University's true spirit. Entering my fourth year, I can say that there is something more to the University.
That something is the historical legacy this school passes onto us, a legacy that is ours both to cherish and to build upon. Walking around grounds one cannot help but notice the past and see how the actions of previous generations of students reach out to us still today. From streaking the Lawn to the honor code, the University is a place where the past comes alive through the traditions that have been passed down to us. In fact, it is these traditions and their heritage that help make this University such a unique place and that tie together past, present, and future.
Our University's heritage is no more strongly denoted than when students dress up for football games. The tradition of University gentlemen wearing a coat or at the least a dress shirt and tie, and of University ladies wearing sundresses, tells our opponents that we are a classy University rather than a half-crazed mob. It tells our opponents that we are indeed gentlemen and ladies, and that we hold ourselves to a higher standard and that we respect those who have come before
Contrary to what critics will argue, wearing a tie to games rather than an orange shirt does not mean you are less of a fan. Clothing, after all, has very little if anything to do with how much you yell and cheer for our players. Critics will also say that the football players will be more enthused to see a mass of orange shirts. Well, quite frankly, 60,000 cheering fans is a good motivator no matter what they're wearing. The bottom line is that adhering to our time-honored tradition of dressing nicely for football games shows that you have respect for the University and for the legacy passed to us by our alumni. How much you cheer on the team says a lot more about how much you respect them, and if recent record-attendance seasons are any indicator then we have no problems there.
Let's face it, the University thinks of itself as a fairly elitist school, however politically incorrect it might be to admit to. We all worked hard in high school to get here, and for the most part we work hard to stay here. We take pride in being at the top of the list of the best public colleges -- Berkeley as number one is clearly a typo -- we enjoy the aristocratic heritage of Mr. Jefferson's University, and above all we enjoy lording over our friends at Virginia Tech that quite simply, we are not Virginia Tech. We may pretend not to, but deep down we all take pride in being the beneficiaries of the University's history, and we hope that future generations will look back on us and be similarly awed.
So when Saturday rolls around, do the right thing and support what it means to be the University of Virginia as well as support the University's football team. Cheer and yell until your voice completely disappears and sing the Good Ole Song until you are blue in the face, but also remember to dress nicely and in doing so to show your respect for what it means to be a part of this University.
Allan Cruickshanks is a Cavalier Daily associate editor. He can be reached at acruickshanks@cavalierdaily.com.
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