WASTED STATE: Severing ties with an alma mater
We used to make fun of our alma mater. “Wasted State,” we’d call it. “If we’re not, the day is,” right? Or, “WSC: get a degree while you ski.” We picked fun at it, but we did it with pride and appreciation, the way you’d ride a cool coach, or a goofy parent. Like other alumni of Western State College of Colorado, I once looked back at my time in school fondly, thankful for the people I met there and the experiences we shared.
Now I look back at WSC with shame. Faced with a budget crisis, Western State College—a little cow plop of a school tucked in among the cattle ranches of the Gunnison Valley with little else going for it aside from its proximity to stunning mountains and great skiing—has decided to stop funding it’s ski team. A school 30 miles from one of the most vaunted and historic ski towns in North America, and to save money they cut… the SKI TEAM!?
Skiing and Western have been synonymous since the day the school was founded. Despite being the smallest four-year school to compete in Division I, the ski team is a legitimate national contender. In 2005, they finished in the top 25 in NCAA division I with a roster of mostly American-grown skiers competing against mostly European ringers. I can understand wanting to keep a wrestling team that ranked 20th in the nation in '05, or the perennial powerhouse track and field and cross-country programs. But they couldn’t do without the 7-20 volleyball team? Or a basketball team that couldn’t win more than 5 times in a 26 game season? Or, god forbid, the football team?
Nope, Western decided the student body (comprised mostly of chiseled climbers, mountain bikers, skiers, and snowboarders) would suffer without 100 or so “student athletes” who either didn’t do enough 'roids in high school to make a real football team, or did just enough to make a talentless blob of a body strong enough to push an equally unskilled mound out of the way. Worse yet, they suck! They are the doormat of Division II football; high school teams in every state and Puerto Rico could beat them. There’s an all-girls team on a small Polynesian island near Samoa that I’m pretty sure could shut them out. In 2004, Mountaineer Football was outscored 335-195 on their way to an astounding 3-8 record. “Making champions out of thin air,” indeed.
Western State could have made a statement. In the wake of the rape and recruiting scandals that have plagued the football team at Colorado’s highest profile state-funded university, Western could have shown the world that once in a while college sports is about community, camaraderie, amateurism, and sportsmanship. Alas, they instead proved that, even at a Podunk little D.II state school, it’s still about image and booster dollars.
Truth is, no matter how many gridiron pictures they put in the brochures, catalogs, and student manuals, the football team will never fit into the Western community the way the ski team did. Almost 8,000 feet up in the Rockies, in a tiny ranching town nestled in the coldest valley in the U.S.—that’s no place for a football team. But it’s a great place to ski. And yet, cut the football team? How could we? What about the Mountaineer Bowl? (The highest collegiate stadium in the world, with undoubtedly the highest fan base, would still make a good track stadium) What about the ridiculous steel tower built right smack in the middle of the old rugby and soccer field? (It rendered the field useless for other sports, but was dubbed at the time the greatest coaching asset the football team had; just think: without that, how would we have ever beaten Western New Mexico?) Think about the furor the alumni would raise!
Well here’s a little fury for you. I’m no longer claiming Western State. I’m deleting it from my resume, cutting up my alumni credit card. I’m even trashing my lucky Mountaineer boxers (though that’s due more to the decomposing nature of cotton). Western made their choice, so I’m making mine. The good news is that the WESTERN STATE COLLEGE FOUNDATION has raised enough private money to keep the ski team alive until about 2010. The bad news is, I don’t care. It shouldn’t have come down to that. So I’m severing ties. From now on, when I drive through Gunnison and see the giant W on Tenderfoot mountain, I’m not going to wax nostalgic about the Crimson and Slate of good ol’ Western State, I’m gonna think “Whatever.”
Sure, I learned a lot during my time at Western State and in Gunnison Valley. I learned to write for internationally circulated sports magazines and TV broadcasts, and I learned how to edit one of the most respected outdoor magazines in the world. I learned geology, geography, and climatology. I learned how to travel safely and cheaply, how to climb a peak, how to survive for an entire semester on beer, top ramen, and mushrooms. I learned to be a skier. But I didn’t learn these things in a classroom in Taylor Hall, rather through the place that surrounds that building, and the people with whom I shared those classrooms. Everything I learned, I learned from skiing; WSC was just the vehicle that got me there. I’m not so much a product of Western as I am a graduate of Skiing U.
So the next time someone asks me where I went to college, that’s what I’m going to tell them. I’m a graduate of the Skiing University College of Kinesiology and Institute of Technology. And the next time I see one of the sackless, spineless Wasted State administrators who turned their backs on our sport, I’m going to cheer loud and clear for my new alma mater: Go S.U.C.K. I.T.!