Rivals

Every team has a rival. With the Minnesota Vikings, it’s the Green Bay Packers. With the Boston Red Sox, it’s the New York Yankees. With the University of St. Thomas (UST), it’s St. John’s University (SJU).

My alma mater is UST, and J’s is SJU. These schools really don’t like one another. It’s crazy because when I was a senior in high school, I was accepted to both UST and St. Ben’s, which is the sister school of SJU. SJU is an all men’s school, whereas St. Ben’s (CSB) is all women. They do have intermingled classes; intermingled dining halls, etc.; however, they have separate campuses.

I don’t remember why I ended up picking UST over CSB, but I did. During my tenure as a Tommie, I was bred to despise the enemy. Any time UST had a game against SJU, the campus would turn into complete chaos---especially during football.

During football games between the two schools, more attention was paid to the derogatory t-shirts people wore. One of my closest friends “S” was a student at St. Ben’s. During my senior year of college, the anticipated Tommie/Johnnie game was to be held up at SJU. Before some of my friends and I headed up to the game, I called “S”, to finalize lodging plans (we stayed @ her house off campus). During the call, she informed me that she felt bad, but would be wearing a mean spirited shirt on game day.

During our conversation I asked “What does the shirt say?”

She said something along the lines of “USTD.”

Background information. Tommie girls have the reputation of being beautiful, flirtatious, scandalous and lacking in the intelligence department. I think the latter adjectives are inaccurate; however, to each their own. CSB girls have the reputation of being brainy, simple, etc. Please keep in mind these are stereotypes and do not represent my thoughts.

Anyway, back to the USTD comment. It was clearly paying homage to Tommy girls being scandalous. I was upset and told my roommates, who also were upset. We thought revenge would be a good idea, so we ran to Walmart at 12 a.m. and bought some puffy paint. We decided we’d make our own shirts, and include a counterattack.

I’m not going to tell you what we wrote, because I’m a lady. Let’s just say, it was inappropriate and in bad taste. When we showed up at SJU/CSB, people pointed and laughed at our shirts, but it was all in good fun.

Fast forward seven years. I’ve grown up quite a bit. J and I ended up going to the Tommie/Johnnie game this past Fall and we both worse sensible t-shirts….here’s a pic: