Let GSA in Powderpuff
Powderpuff football is a residential college institution, and it is one of the most widely supported intramural sports at Rice. It is also the only non-freshman college sport from which members of the Graduate Association are denied participation, and as such does not count for President’s Cup points. Rumors circulated earlier this semester that IM sports administrators were considering allowing the GSA to play Powderpuff, which would allow it to be President’s Cup-eligible, and we support this idea. Since Powderpuff is so important to sports fans, it only makes sense for it to be a President’s sport. But objections to the GSA’s inclusion on the female flag-pulling field come in two main flavors: first asserts Powderpuff belongs to the residential colleges more than to sports, and second is that GSA women will be out of their league — either they will be too good at the game, or they will not be good enough. The former group of naysayers should check their copies of the Vision for the Second Century. V2Cc’s position on graduate students states: “[W]e must assure that graduate students engage as full participants in our community.” While we do not expect to see graduate students filling up the empty rooms at our colleges any time soon, we do believe engaging them in activities central to the undergraduate experience will help to achieve the university’s goal. To the latter objection, we challenge sports enthusiasts to find an sport that gets more competitive, and for which undergraduates put in more practice time, than Powderpuff. If GSA women turn out to be good at the undergraduate game, it will inspire the rest of the teams to step up to the challenge. And if graduate students end up strutting and fretting around the field, at least they will finally be poor players at something, and undergraduate sports fans will have a sweet little taste of revenge for the GSA’s tendency to dominate other competitions. In short, we hope those rumors are substantiated.
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