#44) Welcome To The Zoo
UMass is a special place. As I watch this video and reflect on the years I spent there, I’m genuinely surprised there aren’t more deaths or at least paralyzations on a biweekly basis. It’s a school filled with Massholes, Long Islanders, Jersey trash, and kids from Westchester who try and claim the Bronx constantly trying to one up each other. Toxic masculinity like you read about. And oh yeah, it’s fucking negative 10 degrees from November until after St. Paddy’s Day. (I’ve been told the campus was designed by the same guy who built Arizona State. So the guy who built a wind tunnel in the desert decided to replicate that model in Western Massachusetts. I don’t know if that’s true, but it’s a wind tunnel nevertheless. So, make that negative-25 degrees.)
When you go to UMass, you meet kids whose parents went to UMass. Generations of Minutemen, all cut from the same cloth. And they all will tell you the same thing. “Yeah, you kids have fun. But it’s nothing like when I went here.” Followed by a long stare off into the distance, the crack of a smile, and a swig of some *insert whichever alcohol company currently sponsors us* before snapping back into reality.
Listen, I get it was probably nuts when frat row still stood. I’m sure it was crazy when Coach Cal was putting Marcus Camby up in his own triple in the towers. I know it was bananaland when the Red Sox lost in ’03 and won in ’04 and half the campus burned to the ground back to back years. Hell, I’m old enough to remember when Barstool was still allowed within the town limits. But what this video above proves is what I’ve known all along about UMass – the rules may change, but the people remain a constant. It’s a culture, it attracts a certain kind of person – like flies to honey. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts: the administration can keep paying to keep the school off top party lists, the Amherst police can shut down the Hobart Hoedown, the school can ban smoking cigarettes on campus, none of it will ever matter. Field of Dreams type of shit: it’s already built; they will keep coming.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. 14 years later and people are still jumping off shit just for the love of the game.