No Teddy Rogers is Bring Me the Robe's examination of cultural affiliations so revolting they may drive you to threaten friends or loved ones who endorse them with a broken bottle (See 1:25 above).
If I fail to gain carnal knowledge of a University of Notre Dame football fan, I will consider my life somehow incomplete. I can see her now in my minds eye, this strange object of desire, plastic cup of keg beer in hand, her auburn hair smelling like a tailgate, a Return to Glory t-shirt disguising her paunch. Her young face prematurely weathered from watching her Irish catch beatdowns from Service Academies. Her eyes tired with false hope. Really gets my toes tapping.
I think this pathology is common among sports fans. While we naturally seek members of our own camp to share our lives, our secrets, to take home to mom and all that, there is a part of us that craves an emotionless sexual conquest over a supporter of our rivals.
The closest I've come to consumating this urge as a Michigan fan was on new year's eve in Chicago a few years back, when I made it with a girl who was dating Northwestern tailback Noah Herron. An All Big Ten second team selection, Herron had gone for 192 total yards that fall against the Wolverines in a losing effort. Good ballplayer. I bore him and the Wildcats no ill will. His performance on the field had nothing to do with my taking a shine to his girl, who shared my enthusiasm for brown liquor and the films of Dziga Vertov. Just one of those things. However, had Herron's efforts led NW to victory over Michigan that season, or had it been, say, Troy Smith's girlfriend, the act would have been infused with a very different gravity. Brady Quinn's sister would have been a perfect storm.
Twisted as it sounds, there exists a congruency between the strength of my hatred for Michigan's rivals and the strength of my desire to lay down with their women. Not as an expression of love, of course, but as a declaration of mutual submission and contempt. I want to make it with a Notre Dame girl so she feels like she's seeing the Irish running out the tunnel at home rocking their green jerseys and getting beat by Boston College. I want to make it like a Notre Dame loss to a mediocre BCS opponent being one of the lead stories on College Game Day. Sporty fun stuff like that. You always hurt the ones you love. Sometimes you want to screw the ones you hate.
These axioms comprise the very essence of No Teddy Rogers and I keep them handy when sorting out my reasons for never seriously trying to sport fuck an Ohio State fan. (Note: I did once make my girlfriend call me Jim Tressel during sex to see what it might be like). I tell myself I loathe Ohio State with every righteous atom of my being, but I've grudgingly come to respect them as Michigan's worthy, if ethically ambiguous, doppelganger when it comes to athletic tradition and excellence. Excepting the third Saturday of November, I root for Ohio State to succeed, because I want their battle with Michigan to have the greatest possible significance. To contribute to a rich, symbiotic mythology. I have accepted Ohio State fans in my closest circle of friends and can even see myself mating with a Buckeye for purposes greater than whiskey-blind revenge lust.
This is not the case with Notre Dame, a great school with a lovely campus and a catchy fight song which I hope finds failure and embarasment for the next 1,000 years on the gridiron. If you subscribe to the romantic notion that the sports teams we love reflect virtues we wish to cultivate in ourselves and admire in others, its opposite should also hold true. Individuals with affinity for lousy sports cultures will inevitably show analogous deficiencies of character. It is no coincidence that the history of Notre Dame bashing is so rich and colorful. Good people have taken Notre Dame fans into their homes. They have indulged their diet books and Jimmy for Heisman buttons. They will spend their New Years day watching rented VHS tapes. I want to make it with a Notre Dame fan like the Rose Bowl her squad will never play in again, ever.
Here are three facets of Fighting Irish fanaticism that make me think I need Notre Dame girls in my life like I need ants in my cereal. And make me think I want to do touchy stuff with them in the stalls of public restrooms.
1. Mysticism
I'm generally disgusted when people suggest that fortune practices favoritism, and especially when it comes to sports. The idea that Notre Dame football is smiled upon by the metaphysically elusive "Luck of the Irish" is annoying and intellectually insulting. Believing your team is favored by luck is dangerously close to believing your team is favored by God. So I inquire, Notre Dame fan, where was your God when Mario Manningham was torching your helpless cornerbacks? Whither your God when Shawn Crable was leaving five inch deep Brady Quinn impressions all over your storied pitch? Why didn't your God stop that irritating little man from putting on the leprechaun costume and prancing on the sidelines like a buffoon? I get dressed quietly and slip out while you're lighting prayer candles. No Teddy Rogers!
2. Hyperbole
Typified by ND's perpetual Return to Glory. A 9-3 season that concludes with getting your ass handed to you in a bowl game does not portend rediscovered greatness. Not when your program has been irrelevant for over a decade. Staging the gaudiest press conference in the history of recruiting does not make your quarterback an All American. Glossing your coach a genius doesn't guarantee victories. I get dressed quietly and sneak out the window, Notre Dame fan, and you don't even notice, because you've worked yourself into such a lather anticipating a breakout senior campaign by James Aldridge. I mean, he was a five star, right? No Teddy Rogers!
3. Catching Critical Beatdowns
Not only do the Irish lose frequently, they tend to lose by means of critical beat down. It is significant that the greatest achievement in ND's recent football history is playing a competitive game with USC in 2005. Catching a loss is one thing, but doing so with such consistency by such pathetic margins suggests that it might be time to appraise your status in the football world more modestly. I get dressed quietly and dip out the back door while you watch the Irish drive proudly down the field in the fourth quarter to cut the deficit to five touchdowns. Your money is on the night stand, Notre Dame fan. No Teddy Rogers!
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