Its common knowledge that St. Olaf College is superior in every meaningful and tangible way to our dear friends over at Carleton College.
Gone are the days of the 1930s, when students from each college would fight it out in downtown Northfield, in scenes of destructive violence the Oct. 18, 1961Carletonian edition indicated that one store owner claimed his glass window had been smashed eight times from 1923-1936 due to the colleges students clashing.
Fortunately, we no longer have to resort to these brutish displays, but there are several other ways that Oles still reign supreme over Carls.
1. Athletics: do we even need to bring this one up? Its often said that the St. Olaf-Carleton rivalry is mainly about sports, but its not really fair to call something a rivalry if one side wins basically every time.
Sure, Oles will occasionally be kind and let the Knights win the odd game of volleyball or tennis to keep their spirits up, but most of the time, its not even fair.
Our friends do like to celebrate these rare victories in fashion though. For example, last year, following a late goal in a soccer game between the two colleges, several Carls raised their middle fingers, and even pulled down their pants to reveal their bare buttocks in front of the Ole fans in celebration. Talk about seizing the day.
Luckily for us, their hair basically touched the ground and obscured most of their pale derrières from our view. It was the first time in my life Id ever appreciated awful hippie haircuts.
2. Food: Its all in the numbers. Go ahead and take a look at the Princeton Reviews 2015 edition of the “Best 379 Colleges,” and youll find St. Olaf comes in at #5 in the Best Campus Food category. I dont even know where Carleton ranks, because whats the point of looking past the top 10 to see who all the losers are? A Carl might argue back, and say something about how great their entrance SAT scores are over there. But you know what, I cant eat an SAT score, so I really couldnt care less.
3. Fictional Alumni: lets just compare two fictional alumni from each of the two colleges. Carleton has Ben Wyatt from the television seriesParks and Recreation. I hate that show, and I think its stupid. St. Olaf has Jay Gatsby fromThe Great Gatsby. I like that book. St. Olaf – 3. Carleton – 0.
4. Geography: its time to consider the most basic reason that were superior. Were on a hill, and theyre at the bottom of it. You know what else was built on a hill? Ancient Rome, and that was pretty cool, wasnt it?
Basically, what Im getting at is that if both schools decided to go to war, it would be easy for Oles to repel the invading Carls. I know, its a hypothetical, but you never know when theyre going to get sick of eating their inferior food and decide to attack.
There are a lot of other reasons St. Olaf reigns supreme over Carleton, but I cant list them all. I have things to do, like interact in a non-socially awkward way with my friends, make eye contact with people, do something athletic or eat good food. You get the point.
nolans@stolaf.edu
