As many students may already know, Washington University is a college with Division III athletics. This translates as a lack of a stadium packed with overly excited, slightly drunk, and brightly painted students. But one can’t expect much more from a school better known for its academic prestige, and, administrators of schools with Division III athletics including Wash. U., are well-aware of this reality.

But in the Fall of 2005, Emory University’s Student Government Association President Amrit Dhir led a plan to defy such reality by sparking a fabricated rivalry between two Division III athletics teams, the Emory Eagles and the Wash. U. Bears. His hope was to increase school spirit and to do so, Dhir formed Emory’s Department of War, took on the position of “Supreme Ruler” and waged “war” against Wash. U.

Emory students began their “attacks” by vandalizing the underpass between main campus and South 40, leaving spray painted statements, “Wash. U. girls are ugly – Emory University” and “Emory owns U, George Washington is dead.”

Wash. U. students did not retaliate, but to ensure the success of their plan, Emory’s Department of War scattered flyers reading, “Die Emory Die! Go Wash. U,” which led Emory students to believe that the toilet paper dangling off their dorms and surrounding trees was the work of Wash. U. students. The vandalism was supplemented with an editorial written by Emory SGA Representative Jacob Silverman in Emory’s school paper, The Wheel, which stated that Wash.U was “a school without identity, down to its hopeless clich‚d mascot (a bear), a school so insecure in its location and stature that it includes its location in its official name.”

In response to such Op-Ed articles, Wash. U.’s Student Life retaliated with a couple newspaper articles of its own, and, on campus, students sold T- shirts that read, “Emory was my safety school.” But it wasn’t long until Student Life’s front pages were adorned with a story concerning allegations of a homophobic physics professor. Soon enough, the “Emory was my safety school” T-Shirts found their places in boxes, shoved aside to some corner of a storage room.

It wasn’t so much that Wash. U. lacked school spirit that the rivalry so quickly faded away from the minds of students; the student body just never felt any reason to play along with Emory’s “war” game. Altogether, Wash. U. just never recognized Emory as a formidable opponent or a school of comparable academics.

In a short period of time, the rivalry that Emory SGA President Dhir hoped would explode into something similar to that of the UCLA Bruins and USC Trojans dwindled into more of a one-sided effort to boost school spirit just like it began.

So, for those freshmen who are unaware, curious, or in anticipation of the Wash. U. – Emory rivalry, they should be forewarned the intensity does not even begin to compare to the Duke Blue Devils and UNC Tar Heels’ rivalry, but attendance at Wash. U. – Emory sporting events has increased.

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