I frequently find myself beset by the question: "What did Hamline ever do to you?" The puzzled expressions, the pharasaical heads oscillating dismissively, noses wrinkled in disgust-truly, rivalry building is thankless work. When I arrived at Macalester, I came with a vision of heated sports rivalry. Where I come from, merely loving a team is insufficient. Hatred of a rival is an integral part of true fandom. Upon arriving at Macalester, I learned that a rivalry already existed, albeit a lukewarm, ill-conceived one. The well-known "Tommies Suck" cheer, meritorious though it may be, seemed misdirected to rival reviler like myself. "What a piss poor choice for a rival," I thought. "What the hell does St. Thomas have to do with us?"

The quintessence of any great rivalry is the relative parity that exists between two opposing forces. From the outset, I deemed Hamline an overwhelmingly better-suited target. Although true equipoise is not possible between Macalester and Hamline either, as our students tend to be vastly more clever, our professors more able and our sense of community more profoundly intrinsic, Pipers are a much closer approximation of Scots than Tommies (whatever the hell they are!). The prudence underlying this rivalry between the Scots and the Pipers occurred to me in no mere flight of fancy, nor was it the product a "white light" Jack-van Impe-esque revelation from a supreme being, Great Spirit, or other more traditional deity (e.g. Allah, Jehovah, the Great Pumpkin). In fact, the imperative to reinvent and reinvigorate the once impassioned struggle betwixt the Sister Schools of Snelling Avenue was the product of a considerable amount of research.

St. Thomas has been the undisputed powerhouse in the MIAC for 25 years (except in soccer, of course). They have won the MIAC all-sports trophy 16 times in 18 years for women and 18 times in the last 23 years for men. Macalester has not won the trophy since 1968. Hamline has never won it. St. Thomas is huge, with an enrollment exceeding 11,000, while Hamline's undergraduates number 1,784, which is comparable to our 1,810. St. Thomas is the largest religious school in the state. Macalester, according to methodologically flawless research by USA Today, cares less about God than any other college in the world. While St. Thomas was founded by papists, Macalester and Hamline were founded by good old-fashioned WASPS (Presbyterian and Methodist respectively). Besides, isn't it more fun to have a rival that we can kick the shit out of every year?

In fact, it is because of our well-documented superiority that, in spite of better than a decade of apathy toward Hamline, their students maintain a healthy hatred of ours. Go ahead. Ask any Hamline kid you encounter how Macalester is regarded among her or his cohorts. You will be told that Macalester students are rich, spoiled, pretentious, haughty and unwashed. The fact that these sentiments may not be so far from the truth in many cases does not excuse us from reciprocating this antipathy.

And as I learned from several audiences with alumni, the rivalry has a long history. As "Wild" William Lancaster '59, the first citizen of the British Empire to play for the Fighting Scots Basketball Club remembers, the rivalry occasionally became personal. "There was a chap on their side named Bert something-or-other, who was their leading scorer that year. Well, a handsome blonde-haired bloke named Hank Carlsen '61 had shagged this Bert fellow's girlfriend something awful the weekend before we were scheduled to play. Apparently, she took quite a liking to old Hank because from the tip off, she was seated over on our side of the fieldhouse. I'll never forget the look on ol' Bert's face. Nor will I forget how we laughed our arses off at his ejection from the game: a double technical foul after shooting 0–16. By jove, did that poor bastard cry! We won by 35 points and Hank and the Hamline bird just celebrated 40 years of marriage."

As one source indicated, our very own Kofi Annan '61 was a fervent participant in the rivalry. This classmate and former drinking buddy recalls a telling example of Kofi's school spirit: "It was the final game of the 1960 season, at 3–14 we were battling to avoid falling into last place, and we'd been drinking all morning. If I remember correctly, it was the first time Kofi ever tried malt liquor. So we rode up there, and what does Kofi do immediately upon stumbling out of the car but relieve himself right on that stupid Hamline sign. God, that was classic Kofi."

So you see, the Hamline rivalry is an integral part of the Macalester tradition. It is as much a part of the Macalester experience as that silly bell I rang upon losing my virginity last semester or that touching little candle ceremony with which we all began our journey. This rivalry has lain dormant in recent years, but I assure you– the spirit lives on! It is up to you, my fellow Scots, and it is up to me, the FUCK HAMLINE guy, to breathe life into this sacred cause, and elevate it to the fore of our collective consciousness where it belongs!