In 2003, Utah Valley State College’s athletic teams will begin playing NCAA Division I competition, putting it in the same league as BYU and other real, live schools. If you’re like me, you consider this big news, because you didn’t know UVSC even had athletic teams.
But this is ignorant of you and me. Of course UVSC has athletic teams. What, you think people go there for academic reasons?
But again, we must stop making cracks like that. Though I have long been at the forefront in making fun of UVSC, I fear the time may have come that we shall have to start taking the school seriously.
First it became a state college instead of a community college. Then they began hiring professors instead of hobos. Then they started giving graduates diplomas instead of Chili’s gift certificates. Now, apparently, they will play at the top level of NCAA athletics, competing against other colleges rather than high schools and scout troops.
Yes, my friends, maybe the days of blithely mocking UVSC are over. In the past, we have considered a UVSC athletic event to be on the same level of legitimacy as a same-sex wedding, or a little girl’s tea party to which her dollies are invited — you know, you’d attend if there was nothing else going on, but it’s not like you’ll take it seriously or anything. All that could change now. If UVSC successfully makes the leap from NJCAA Region 18 to NCAA Division I-A, it will be the first school ever to do so without most of its students knowing what those letters stand for.
But enough jokes about UVSC! Come on, people, this is serious business. To be eligible for NCAA Division I play, UVSC must choose another sport to add to the 13 it already has, three of which, technically, are board games. It has come down to men’s volleyball or wrestling, the dilemma being that volleyball would attract mostly out-of-state students, while wrestling is boring.
The other dilemma is how to come up with the additional budget necessary to compete in Division I. UVSC’s sports budget is $1.4 million now, but must be at $2 million by the end of the six-year provisional period. That additional $600,000 will go toward “upgrading” the teams to NCAA status. For example, members of the basketball team will ultimately need to wear traditional shirt-and-shorts uniforms, rather than the overalls and straw hats they wear now. Also, the unripe cantaloupes swiped from Farmer Johnson’s melon patch will be replaced with regulation basketballs.
You can see why I’m worried. Though I grudgingly admit in my more unguarded moments that UVSC has been a legitimate institution of higher learning for a couple years now, I have refused to acknowledge it publicly. With this advance in athletics, though, I may be forced to.
But first, I need to unload this last pile of jokes, which is a list of courses offered at UVSC:
– Parking
– Sheepdip from Shinola: How to Tell the Difference
– The Science of Bongs
– Washing Machines: Unlocking the Mystery
– Underpants Studies
– Long Division
– Noises a Doggie Makes
– The Bazooka Joe Comic as Literature
– Figuring out the Long, Difficult Words in Your BYU Rejection Letter
Go Wolverines!