Curb Your Enthusiasm

Well, this just landed in in-boxes across campus. You might want to tone it down next time you attend a squash match.

To the Dartmouth Community:

As you may know, The Valley News reported Saturday on the inappropriate behavior of Dartmouth students attending a men’s and women’s squash match against Harvard last Wednesday.

We are very disappointed that any of our students would engage in behavior that is out of line with the values of this community. While we encourage students to vigorously support our athletes, we expect them to do so in a way that reflects our pride in those teams, not disrespect for others. The Office of the Dean of the College and the Athletics Department are still gathering information about what happened at this match at Dartmouth.

A number of our students have already apologized to the Dartmouth community and others, including our men’s soccer team, which today issued a written apology to the Dartmouth community and took full responsibility for actions by some members of their team. We support the soccer team’s newly-announced initiative to encourage Dartmouth athletes and fans to discuss how to create a more respectful atmosphere at our events.

We will be personally contacting a Harvard player and his parents who were particular targets of inappropriate statements by Dartmouth students, as well as Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust, to convey our concern and to offer apologies on behalf of our community.

Jim Yong Kim
President, Dartmouth College

Sylvia Spears
Acting Dean of the College

Bob Ceplikas ’78
Acting Athletics Director

The story in question is this one. Apparently some boys from the soccer team and AD appeared at the recent squash match against Harvard to support our team and create an intimidating atmosphere (good). They did this by being as loud (great!) and lewd (not so good) as possible, including yelling such family friendly phrases as the following:

Words such as “dick,” “fag” and “—-sucker” were repeatedly shouted at the visitors Wednesday, many times with “f——” added as an adjective. Harvard’s female players eventually sought the protection of an assistant coach after they said they were called “whores” and “sluts” while they cheered on their male peers. While playing his match, Franklin Cohen was told he had small genitals and asked if he liked bagels, a phrase his mother viewed as a reference to the family’s Jewish surname.

Nice one, guys. Bryan Giudicelli, an ’11 soccer player, also followed up by calling a Crimson team member who was score-keeping,

…a “coward” and a “despicable human being”.

Well, at the very least, I suppose we can trash talk at both ends of the spectrum. I eagerly await the day we refer to a Harvard player as, “a downright daft dosser,” or perhaps, “a plebeian, twonking prat.” The possibilities are endless with our near-limitless vocabulary.

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