Start a bonfire, break out the monotonous chants and go see a Rastafarian Shaman, because Tufts University is cursed.
Yes, I went there.
Over the past few years, numerous near-misses within the athletics department have led me to one simple conclusion: The Jumbos are hexed. In 2000, women's soccer lost the national championship at home on a goal in the final seconds of the game. Men's basketball saw a 2006 Sweet 16 victory snatched away when a buzzer-beating three-pointer pushed the game into overtime. Field hockey last year fell in the national final to Bowdoin in double-overtime.
Of course, this past weekend was no exception. In a valiant effort, volleyball became the first New England Div. III school since 2004 to win a set in an NCAA quarterfinal match but ultimately fell to Hope College 3-1.
Likewise, the field hockey team, thanks in part to a hospitalized coach, two players with the flu, one with two broken fingers, and a fourth with a hamstring tighter than a hipster's leather pants, lost 1-0 in the Final Four on Saturday. Incidentally, watching their inspirational performance was like having a homeless, hungry, talking puppy come up to you and give you a hug.
So why is it that Tufts can continue to put so many teams in the NCAA Tournament and still not come out with one solitary national championship? Well, after years of painstaking research — okay, it was one car ride home with Twizzlers and canned Gatorade — I have come up with five fool-proof theories sure to blow the proverbial lid off of the mystery as to why Tufts can't bring home that elusive trophy, Sherlock Holmes style.
Theory One: The Location Curse. Tufts University was built on top of Walnut Hill in 1852 when founder Charles Tufts donated the land, saying he wanted to create a "light on the hill." While uphill and downhill have remained a staple of Jumbo life for over 150 years, what we fail to overlook is that our campus was built on an ancient Indian burial mound — certainly not the innocent light-giving hill Charles Tufts envisioned. Since we disturbed the remains, they have come back to haunt us and have put a hex on our athletic success until all is restored. It's as simple as that.
Theory Two: The Color Curse. Tufts University's colors are brown and baby blue. Those aren't college colors — those are the hues of an albino smurf's poop.
Theory Three: The Curse of the Beelzebubs. When Charles Tufts founded this prestigious university, he made a pact with the devil, which stated that Tufts would be given only one nationally prominent group, while other clubs and teams would wallow away in misery for all of eternity. That one group? The Tufts Beelzebubs, who will soon make an appearance on NBC. Thanks a lot Charles Tufts for screwing the rest of us over.
Theory Four: The Swine Flu Curse. H1N1, which plagued many of the stars of the Jumbos' field hockey team this weekend, was actually created by a combined laboratorial effort from Amherst and Williams in an attempt to stifle our athletic progress.
Theory Five: The Curse of the Ashes. This harkens back to the Location Curse, theorizing that, until Jumbo's ashes are properly buried, we will never find success. Sure, it's tradition and all, but ashes — especially elephant ashes — should not be kept in an urn in the Athletics Department's office. That's just bad luck waiting to happen.
Now, with all of these theories out in the open, how do we proceed?
Well my friends, it's up to the Athletics Department to see to it that these get amended in the near future, for the sake of our sports programs and our athletes.
Because if not, I may have to start brewing up the first-ever rhinoceros flu.
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Alex Prewitt is a sophomore who has not yet declared a major. He can be reached at Alexander.Prewitt@tufts.edu.
