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Though Bush appeared in just three games as a relief pitcher for the Yale freshman baseball team, he was an IM gamer, playing baseball, basketball, football and rugby (above). Yale Class of 1969, Manuscripts & Archives, Yale University Library |
By now most of us have read -- or learned by watching The Daily Show -- that both President George W. Bush and Sen. John Kerry spent their undergraduate years at Yale. Kerry (class of 1966) presided over the Yale Political Union while Bush ('68) was president of the rowdy Delta Kappa Epsilon (DKE) fraternity. Both men were tapped to join Skull and Bones, the hypersecret society whose alumni include three U.S. presidents and a slew of corporate and political potentates (but, alas, neither Jodie Foster nor Claire Danes).
After a daring late-night break-in at S&B headquarters, I was able to "borrow" a few documents from their tomb that yielded some fascinating information: Apart from being the campus's best-known brainiac and boozer, respectively, the candidates made their marks on Yale athletics as well.
While neither man was a stud jock during his four years in New Haven, Conn., both contributed to athletics. Bush, a former head cheerleader at Andover, reveled in pumping up the crowd at the Yale Bowl -- until the Harvard-Yale game of 1965, that is. On that afternoon, with the score 0-0 early in the first half, Bush approached the sidelines masquerading as an Elis football player. Clad in an oversized helmet, shoulder pads and cleats, he stormed onto the field and unfurled a banner that declared VICTORY ACHIEVED!!! Harvard went on to win 13-0.
"We misunderestimated them," Bush said.
Kerry, then a senior contemplating law school at Harvard, never saw the incident. "I believe I was walking between the Harvard and Yale student sections during that unfortunate display," he said. "I was originally in favor of the DKE president's authority to storm the field. But it was the wrong prank, wrong place, wrong time."
Chastened, Bush thereafter limited his sporting pursuits to beer pong, beer frisbee and other "beer-related program activities." When, in 1967, fantasy football became wildly popular on campus, Bush abstained. During the draft, he was busy running a friend's homecoming-king campaign.
 Kerry, a center on the Yale freshman hockey team in 1963, played hockey, lacrosse and soccer in college but made the varsity only in soccer.
Gerald Herbert/AP
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Kerry, however, was a star on the intramural fields. And often sober. He gave long and thoughtful consideration to trying out for the hockey team. Then, taking into account his lithe 6'4" frame, he self-reassessed and considered crew. But he had played hockey in prep school. Yet he was built for crew. Hockey. Crew. Hockey. Crew. Ice. Water. Rink. Row.
"Confound it," he declared on a whistle-stop swing through Old Campus one morning. "I am plagued by equivocation!"
So Kerry sated his appetite for athletic service by joining his dorm's IM hoops team, his only flaw being a tendency to see too much "nuance" when deciding whether to play a zone defense or man-to-man. His most celebrated moment came in 1965, in a game against a group of Laotian exchange students. Playing through a sprained ankle, with just seconds remaining and Yale down by one, Kerry powered to the hoop, then leapt into the air and slammed the ball through the net. Kerry had not only won the game, he had also inadvertently invented the slam dunk.
In recent months, however, a group calling itself the Court #3 Hoopsters for Truth has challenged the senator's version of events, charging that Kerry faked his injury and that the dunk had in fact been invented by Wilt Chamberlain. The Hoopsters, however, were exposed as a front group with connections to the Republican Party and Chamberlain's 2,637 children.
The choices that today's college students make at the ballot box on Tuesday will shape the future of this country. I hope you will consider all the issues and choose wisely. And make sure to ask yourself which man you'd rather see facing Kim Jong Il in a pickup basketball game.
Aryeh Cohen-Wade, a senior English major, is editor-in-chief emeritus of The Yale Record, the school's humor magazine.