Team needs editors, too - Opinion

Mary Petrides
Hillsdale Collegian

November 1, 2007

Saturday's football game was a rush: the Chargers won 31-14 in one of the most exciting home games of the season.

Tiffin University boasted a good-sized crowd, packing the visitor bleachers with far more fans than were in Hillsdale's student section. Perhaps this was because of the weather: It was cold, wet and windy enough to make birds tipsy as they flew over the field.

I was there, in the pep band, huddling in penguin formation between songs and sipping the hot apple cider that Sarah Mitchell brought for us.

I heard Tiffin's fans scream. I saw the shirtless and visibly hypothermic pit posse do
pushups on the soggy turf. I felt my embouchure freeze every time I put my mouthpiece to my lips. I heard Simpson residents sing "Glory, glory, what a wonderful pair of pants / the pants are marching on," and I saw their banner of pinstriped slacks on a broomstick.

I can't remember having so much fun or laughing so hard at a Hillsdale football game. At the end of the game my voice didn't work, my nose was running like a cheetah, and I wasn't sure if all my toes were still connected to my feet. And it was worth it.

Notably absent from the stands, however, were several "Collegian" editors who last week urged Hillsdale students to "pack the bleachers with our hand-painted signs and smiles" and "give them the applause and hollering they deserve."

To the editorial board's credit, News Editor David Landow came for the second quarter. He hollered once or twice, but mostly sat alone on the cold, wet bleachers huddled in a black coat and matching hat.

He carried no hand-painted signs.

Hillsdale's student section would have been nearly doubled if the entire editorial board had done what they asked their fellow Hillsdale students to do. But one editor showing up for one quarter without a hand-painted sign doesn't "pack the bleachers with our hand-painted signs and smiles."

Write, editors. Write, because the pen is mightier than the sword.

But know that actions speak louder. It doesn't take a sword to attend a football game.

Editor's note: Not only do we write with mighty pens, we editors here at The Collegian pride ourselves on letting our freelancers mock us, even when they don't bother to find out what out-of-town trips and graduate school tests kept us from the game. Not to worry, though, we'll always support our teams in print.

Team needs editors, too - Opinion