In what is being called a “must-win” game for each side, the campus newspapers kick off another year of their annual flag-football rivalry Friday.
This crucial mid-season matchup between The Badger Herald and the Daily Cardinal will have little effect on the newspapers’ year-long chase for the students’ attention, which the Herald can clinch next week. But everyone recognizes the game’s implications on public drunkenness later in the afternoon.
“I’m a little worried about the timing,” said Herald publisher Chris Arndt. “We have another alcohol binge scheduled just five hours after the game starts, and I would hate to think we might get too drunk to get drunk later on.”
Arndt missed last year’s battle, a 49-42 overtime epic, which the Herald managed to scrape out after nearly blowing a lead due to extreme intoxication. But the newspaper will try to take advantage of Arndt’s defensive range at linebacker as well as his fiscal leadership in its effort to stomp the Cardinal.
Another of the Herald’s stars is fleet-footed Editor in Chief Lars Russell, last year’s Baughman Trophy winner after his two-touchdown performance as sports editor. The multi-dimensional senior plans to use his large mouth and size-14s in both the offensive and defensive backfield.
“I would expect a triple- or quadruple-team this time,” Lars said. “But I don’t know that the Cardinal has enough people on staff.”
The older newspaper is not answering questions this week about its defensive lineup, but one possible big man is sports editor Brian Lauvray, the self-proclaimed “Eating King.” He reportedly matches Russell’s touchdowns with plates of sweet-and-sour chicken. Lauvray’s side wants to get back to its 2000 form, when it stunned the Herald in the snow at Vilas Park, and is confident Editor in Chief Joe Potente can make the difference.
“In actuality, the Cardinal’s financial ties to the university are exactly the same as those of The Badger Herald in that there are none,” Potente said.
“The Cardinal is always talking about how independent they are, but they’re wrong,” said Herald design editor Heidi Olsen. “We own them.”
The Herald has won three of the last four Fall Classics and has generally dominated the Cardinal in athleticism and readership, including three consecutive spring softball games and every day of publication. But the teams put special emphasis on the flag-football challenge. Part of the animosity, observers claim, has something to do with the fact that the game is a rare occasion when staff members from the rival papers can put hands on one another.
Sometimes things get a little rough.
Several Cardinal injuries delayed the action two years ago. The Herald’s Russell claims opponents were deliberately targeting his legs during that game. Former Cardinal editor in chief Tom Derpinghaus aged noticeably during the 2001 contest. Veteran Herald comics editor Davy Mäyer has had multiple surgeries on both knees.
This year, he is relegated to the sidelines as honorary coach. Mäyer, whose father once played football for the University of Wisconsin, says he has been running the team through regular drills for nearly a month.
“I can’t believe how poorly coached these players were,” Mäyer said, banging a cane on the floor. “Most of them still can’t drive the 350-pound sled, and Ironside doesn’t even know what pitch relationship is. The guys are like a bunch of little girls. And the girls — they’re like even littler girls.”
Lamenting the absence of news editor Jessica Peterson and associate sports editor Mike Giefer, Mäyer will count heavily on Colin Finan, who runs the Herald’s extension magazine Maintain.
“He brings a certain toughness,” Mäyer said.
“East Pointe to Shaolin,” Finan said. “Y’all better know that.”
–Compiled from staff reports
