Comet pride

I again find myself up at a ridiculous hour of the morning. And tomorrow I need to finish writing a paper. Ahh! Anyway, I was just watching CNN's American Morning, and they had a story about the Miami Dade College chess team, a team that has no coach and cannot afford the traditional blazers worn by collegiate chess players. Apparently, they recently placed in the Collegiate Chess Final Four and this is very special because they were able to hold their own with "the Harvards and Yales."

Now, I don't mean to diminish their accomplishment. Certainly, it's something for a team with little institutional resources to go as far as they did. And, from what I can tell from the CNN story, the players are all extraordinarily talented and determined.

What slightly annoyed me, though, is that it wasn't just Miami Dade community college who emerged as the scrappy underdog.* No, do you know who won the Collegiate Chess final four? That's right... UT-Dallas. They may not be a community college, and they may be able to get blazers for their team, but they certainly don't have the institutional prestige of "the Harvards and Yales."

We may not have a football team. People may look at me weird when I say I went to UTD and majored in sociology ("Isn't that a math and science school?"). Our mascot may be a comet named Temoc. Our colors may be a hideous green and orange. But, goshdarn it, we rock at chess.**

*Not that UTD is really an underdog. They've been brilliant at chess for quite a while now.
**I, myself, suck at chess, but am claiming UTD's assets as my own.