Two weeks ago, Toby Atkins displayed tremendous chutzpah with his compelling article entitled “Restoring tradition.” Mr. Atkins expounds on why our football budget’s endless void is so important, and why those of us who value our ostensibly useless learning programs’ funding should just stop whining. I intend to set the record straight, in the most sincerely sardonic way possible, while simultaneously drawing from my culture’s rhetorical, guilt-laden roots.

Let’s review the highlights, that is to say, the myths he cites as legitimate reasons for believing this nonsense:

It is commonly known fact that no one important talks about academics.

Yeah, forget about all that whole Tate business; the alumni probably didn’t talk about that in their smokey back rooms. And those entire wings of our classroom buildings and professors’ salaries – gornisht, not a word was spoken about such trivial matters! The Pearlman family couldn’t really have meant it when they gave the Honors Program the funding for the Al and Sadye Gartner Series. Tradition shmidition. In the mysterious and ignorant world of Toby Adkins, these and other such endowments have vanished; what a shunda to our treasured alumni, indeed.

We should care more about tourism than about improving the quality of education.

Naturally this makes sense, since Dallas is such a hopping travel destination. It would seem that our makher Mr. Toby, an advertising major, is really concerned for the sustainability of a healthy Dallas economy. If you wanted to lower travel costs, Mr. Toby, then why didn’t you write an article about the Wright Amendment? You don’t have to hide your true feelings about Southwest behind athletic issues; come on, tell your old bubbe what you really feel.

Earning money is the point of any self-respecting university, not that other stuff in the student handbook.

You heard it here, folks: Mr. Atkins has made it clear that we have all been duped. The point of coming to college is to make “$$$” for our alma mater, not to read, write or do that other un-American word. Move over academics, it’s time for Club SMU, Inc. to put on a great football show for everyone. Wait, what are you doing, Brandeis – and various Seven Sisters colleges, and Sorbonne? You don’t have football? Well, no one wants to go to school there anyway – what is it now? You’re better than SMU as universities to attend? Well, I’ll be darned, how did that happen – it must be their fraternities and sororities that put them over the top. A greps arayn und aroys, the miece is oys. (Translation: case closed).

Sports are the easiest and best way to gain national exposure.

Not by educating our President’s wife or by cranking out a Supreme Court Justice nominee, albeit a shameful one. Michael must be right; after all, the press never got shpilkitz by the fact that Michael Dell’s business started in a UT dorm room, or by the fact that our very own Fincher building still has a shadow from the plaque on the wall that once read: “Enron Gallery.” Barukh hashem! (Translation: thank goodness, sarcastic.)

Keeping football a priority is wise because we used to play football well.

Oy gevalt! Just like an annual slave auction is wise, since we used to do that, too, on this campus!

I guess the question we should be all asking ourselves is:

You want we should rather have an NCAA champion or a Nobel Laureate come out of SMU?

If the answer is overwhelmingly the former, then our academic programs should just plotz.

Hershel Chapin is a junior finance and French major. He may be reached at [email protected]