Why I Rushed the Field

By Alston B. Ramsay | Friday, October 21, 2005

Editor's Note: The following was written in the fall of 2000, shortly after the author, editor emeritus Alston B. Ramsay '04, rushed the field during his freshman homecoming. It was his first article published in The Dartmouth Review, and its message is as relevant now as it was then.

I donned my Al Gore mask and stirred restlessly beneath the visitors' bleachers, ready to commence my sprint across the football field. How had I gotten here? What had pushed me to risk life and limb for ten, maybe fifteen seconds of notoriety? I had been told that rushing the field would jeopardize my Dartmouth career, would have permanent repercussions on my "record." But there, beneath the bleachers, those considerations fell by the wayside. True, rushing violates one or another of the College's petty rules. In fact, it's illegal—trespassing, they claim. The College has banned field-rushing since 1986. I will be fined. I will be put on probation. But then I pondered the alternative: Imagine if no one rushed the field. It would be yet another Dartmouth tradition senselessly lost, cast away in the current administration's never-ending assault on everything that makes Dartmouth unique.

I stared out from beneath the bleachers one last time before hitting the ground, writhing beneath the gap between metal and ground and emerging onto the sidelines. The light stunned me momentarily, but as my eyes adjusted I leaned forward and gained speed. After squeezing between the hulking Neanderthals lumping Harvard's bench, I finally dashed across the football field, toward the Dartmouth student section. A thunderous cheer rose from the students and reverberated through the stadium. The alumni joined in, and the roar became deafening.

My lungs burned, my heart pounded, my adrenalin spiked. The energy from the Dartmouth faithful invigorated me as I angled down the sideline and into the end zone. I easily evaded a bumbling officer, and leapt over a deterrent rope—and there my journey came to an abrupt end. A swarm of officers hemmed me in, mere feet from the fence that would have been my escape. I looked up as the officers took hold of me: The Dartmouth stands had again erupted in shrieking approval.

No regrets.

It was clear as I was led off the field, flanked by at least five officers, that tradition, and what it means to us, will persevere, that there will always be some who will accept the consequences, no matter how dire, necessary to preserve Dartmouth's historical luster. Or, at least, remind people of the way it used to be. The past may be gone, irretrievably so, but that does not mean it is lost.

Why is rushing the field is such a major offense? Why is it that an activity that had been performed for decades and decades was suddenly verboten, with increasing penalties piled upon violators? Who could frown upon such a harmless display of school spirit?

That's just the point, you see. We attend Dartmouth at a perilous time: The very links to the past that brought us here are being chiseled away—and then covered up, so that no one will know what it is that has been lost. Aggressive investments, and the concomitant increase in the endowment, afford the administration the right to ignore Dartmouth's loyal alumni, to refashion the College according to a myopic vision based not on Dartmouth's past strengths, but on modish nods to whatever is multiculturalism's fad du jour. For many in Parkhurst, the goal is a self-induced amnesia, where they can fill in the memory gaps however they see fit.

Change is not necessarily bad, but one need not be hidebound to bemoan recent administrative policies. Early in Dartmouth's history, when New Hampshire threatened the College's identity—wanting to transform it into Dartmouth University—Daniel Webster appealed to the Supreme Court that "It is a small college, and yet there are those of us who love it." That line has become an anthem for alumni who embrace Dartmouth's special character. These ties to the past distinguish Dartmouth from the great bulk of colleges nationwide.

The sense of history that pervades Dartmouth remains one of the strongest drawing points for students, and the reason alumni maintain an uncommon attachment to the place. On matriculation, we're embraced by history, tradition, and character. Throughout our four years, the walls of this institution whisper the words of the past.

The College is small and rural, green and bucolic, notable among universities for its undergraduate focus and rich history. But official Dartmouth envisions a large research university and a residential college system like Harvard or Yale or any number of less prestigious imitators. The commodification of the College is a larger transformation, to be sure, but the sum of the whole is composed of individual parts. Outrages that seem minor at the time—like small speech regulations, administrative micromanagement of student social life, a couple deans of diversity, the ban on field-rushing—eventually swell, small drops of water that grow to a flood. It all leads to a breach, and Dartmouth's deep history and tradition is the casualty.

Today's field-rushing is admittedly a far cry from the original, orderly assembly of the freshmen on the football field. Eventually it may be possible to bring back the tradition as it used to be, but until then, there have to be reminders of what used to be—an echo from the grave to which Dartmouth so cavalierly assigns its tradition.

I take offense that the Daily Dartmouth insinuated that my rushing was motivated by student catcalls. Our motivation was well beyond goading. We had prior intent; we had motive; we had a cause. And so, damn the consequences, we ran to gain a few feet against those who favor change for change's sake; we ran to strike a blow against the administrative Leviathan.

They say it is better to ask for forgiveness than for permission. We didn't ask for either. And nor should you.

Why I Rushed the Field

Article Tools

Related Articles