COLUMN: Rooting for the Rice underOwls

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by Angela Arnold

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The underdog. Everyone loves an underdog. They give us hope and validate our dreams. The underdog is an American icon.

The most triumphant moments in sports history center around the underdogs. In just the past year the Northwestern University football team became American heroes. Suddenly, footage of young men clad in purple and black could bring women to tears for reasons other than the painful color combination.

Then, a few months later, in another arena of competition, the underdog made us cheer again. Those short, slow, Ivy League boys led by their ancient coach, Pete, in a dream-like ending, knocked off the former NCAA champs. So what if Princeton didn't let me in and I hold a bitter grudge? At that moment I felt joy at the triumph of hard work, consistency and smart play.

When I first came to Rice, I felt that same joy after many victories and even following some close defeats. That was when I still believed in the Rice underdog myth. Yes, we are a small school with little to offer talent-rich athletes. Yes, we attract student-athletes that are interested in gaining an outstanding education, but I'm afraid it takes much more than this to make a true underdog.

Let's look at Northwestern to find out more about the true underdog. Like Rice, Northwestern is an academically rigorous private university in a big city. Like Rice, the football team's glory years were long past, and Northwestern was the floormat for the rest of their conference.

They started off slowly, but like all underdogs they got psyched up for a big game and they won. They could have settled for that one glorious upset and gone on, but then they wouldn't have been true underdogs. Instead, they won the next game and the next and the next. And each time they won, their status as an underdog grew greater, because what they were doing defied logic and Las Vegas odds.

So what if they lost in the Rose Bowl? They got to go, didn't they? Northwestern set a dreamer's goal, ignored their limitations, and won. They didn't just beat the big shots. They beat everybody. Although we think of underdogs as losers who overcome, they are really winners who refuse to lose.

Another valuable underdog lesson can be learned from Pete Carrill's Princeton team. Now I assume we all know how Princeton and Rice are similar and also that Princeton has no official athletic scholarships. It would seem that they are really no more of an underdog than we are.

That would be true if this had been Princeton's first trip to the tourney, and they had only won to honor their coach's final moments on the floor. The truth, though, is that Princeton has made it repeatedly since Pete has been coach. Year after year they win the Ivy League championship and courageously challenge the best of the best in the playoffs. Getting there was great, but winning was the real goal.

Once Princeton got invited to the Dance they weren't going to stop coming back until they had a glass slipper to bring with them.

They didn't give up trying even though it seemed that a win was nearly impossible. So what if they lost in the second round? There is always next year.

Rice is not an underdog. Losing to Tulane and then beating Texas doesn't make you an underdog. It makes you inconsistent. Right now we are wannabe underdogs, but there is hope.

Volleyball and baseball are both good examples of teams that are making progress. Volleyball went to the NIT this year for the first time in a long time.

Similarly, baseball made it to Regionals last year and walloped everyone except the eventual World Series champs. This year the Regionals look a long way away, but that is no reason to give up hope.

Until we prove that we are winners, in spirit as well as in statistics, we will never be a true underdog, much less a champion.

This item appeared in the Sports section of the April 12, 1996 issue.

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