1 Dec 2005. The closest 'big time' university to my home, it is surprising it turned up this late in the CCP. This cup later made an appearance in the short film Uphoria, which was pitched to the Travel Channel who ultimately declined it. The catchphrase that all the kids are using, "There was a bar on campus. That's right - a bar!!" came out of this taping!
New posts will appear on Mondays now instead of Sunday after the acquisition of College Cup Project by Chick-fil-A Properties, Inc.
5 Nov 2005. Yon colonial ales doth best be served in chill-ed tumblers! The logo on the cup in the photo is no longer the official athletic logo. The NCAA served W&M, along with many other schools, an ultimatum requiring the end of such offensive imagery to Native American peoples or else be banned from hosting postseason competitions. The original intent of the rule, to eliminate hurtful or innaccurate terms like redskin, indian, savage, etc. had been completely undermined at that point to be laughable and arbitrary. The Florida State Seminoles were allowed to continue their name and tradition of having an Indian chief ride a horse to midfield at football games carrying a massive spear. FSU claimed the Seminole tribe allowed usage of their name. The Illinois Fighting Illini were allowed to keep their name as well, deftly tapdancing their way to an explanation that the word 'Illini' denotes an Illinois resident, not just the tribal peoples. Then comes the W&M Tribe - formerly the Indians. The two feathers on the logo were deemed too harsh for our eyes and must be erased from all uniforms, letterheads, websites, fields, signage, co-eds' cheeks, etc. It has since been replaced by a classy but vanilla 'W&M' logo (see below) befitting an institution in its fourth century, but to have to change it at all was the most offensive aspect of this whole debacle. Gene Nichol, the University President got off a scathing parting shot to the NCAA that is both informative and entertaining. And Williamsburg was proud.
5 Nov 2005. Richmond gets a bad rap sometimes, and so does VCU by association, due to street crime. But they've done better recently and VCU has improved their campus as well. Nothing too noteworthy here, whether it be the bookstore, campus, ram-less cup design, or backstory. So here's a fictionalized summary of what happened:
Out of the muck of the James River crawled a man-beast. This man-beast was created one drunken night when a lonely vintner in Albemarle County got too friendly with one of his pet goats. Horrified at what was birthed months later, the winemaker took it far, far away, to a completely different culture: Richmond, Virginia. The city people of Richmond would be able to dispose of it in a cold act that the Charlottesville citizen could not bring himself to commit. In the rain, he set the little half-goat on the banks of the James, not permitting himself to look back as he walked away. In his mind, he was simply allowing nature to take its course. The waters above engorged the waters beneath. The abandoned crate held tight to its hideous cargo as it was swept away. Little did anyone know that the goat-human hybrid was hardier than most other goat-human hybrids. It survived the storm and landed on Belle Island, subsisting for many years on grubs, weeds, and chicken offal from KFC. It allayed its boredom with discarded books from Richmond's closed libraries. The fearsome beast's liberal education and growing interest in the world around him led 'Rammy' - as various news reports on his sighting would call him - to seek funding for a land grant institution. The welcoming people of Richmond, unaccustomed to a man-beast as they may have been, were glad to see a local interested in the education of its people. Years of administrative toil lay ahead, but they would soon pay off. Rammy was overjoyed when the doors finally opened to Virginia Commonwealth University. He served as its first president and athletic mascot.
3 Sept 2005. What a delight the UIC bookstore was. Two-storied, with entrances on both ends and a shared open wall to the student center. There was ample space to merchandise a wide array of goods and still have enough elbow room for comfortable navigation. It is an urban campus, but unlike DePaul, it is contained in its own little area of Chicago, east of the Loop. It's a short walk from the UIC-Halsted El stop - as one would hope - and a new neighborhood is evolving to cater to the non-academic needs of the students and faculty. I recommend the beverage selection at Morgan's @ Maxwell. But they will not dispense your drinks in a too-fat-for-one-hand transparent insulated tumbler.
As far as the athletic logo, it seems a bit gruesome to stylize a great disaster in your city's history, but why stop at a building engulfed in a conflagration when you could show turn of the century tenement dwellers reaching up to the sky, praying for the sweet release of death as they...okay, my point has been made. Go Flames!
