Split personality

Iowa City has multiple personalities. Some of them occupy the same bodies. 

Look at the Hawkeye football team, playing in the yearly grudge match against the Cyclones. (This is a relatively new phenomenon for me, being a transfer student from a tiny college with a Division-III football program. No, we didn’t get that excited about football games.) They looked miserable right from the opening kick, when that kid Jackson ran for 62 yards.  Immediately, the feeling was "Oh, damn, here we go again.” Iowa has had a first-rate program for many years now, but it seems like when the Cyclones show up, we become the black-and-gold Eleven Stooges. 

A completely different team showed up for the second half. I know sports journalists say things like that all the time, but I’m starting to wonder if I haven’t been taking them seriously enough. I’m not at all sure those were the same people. Adam Shada, who looked tiny and sad during the first half, suddenly turned into Agent Smith - seemingly everywhere at once.  Marshal Yanda blocked a Cyclone defender so hard that I thought for a moment he’d killed the poor guy. It was a sight to see, boy. 

What a day!  We came from behind to beat the Cyclones at Kinnick! Huzzah! And then we drank. And we drank. And we did some breathtakingly stupid things. The police blotter in Monday's DI looked like a phone book. Ho-hum, some will say, boys and girls will be boys and girls once in awhile. Consider, though: Eleven people had to be treated for alcohol poisoning at UIHC on Friday and Saturday nights. That’s not partying, that’s coming within nodding distance of death. 

Now, don’t get me wrong, I really like beer. I agree with Benjamin Franklin, who said that "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” But I just don’t get this moronic impulse that seizes so many otherwise-normal UI folks on the weekend. 
Have a drink. Have several, in fact. But don’t have 25. That’s just dumb.

Jonathan Gold
DI columnist