Relieved About a College Prank
Thank God for college students. In a world that takes itself much too seriously, someone has to dream up the hare-brained, kooky ideas. Or, to say it better, ideas that start out as somewhat rational and then become hare-brained and kooky.
Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce Mathew Dos Santos, an 18-year-old UC Irvine sophomore majoring in biology, philosophy and music, and a member of the school’s Associated Students governing body. He and other student leaders decided at a Jan. 11 retreat that the UCI campus, known for its serious-minded but apathetic students, might be more energized if it had an actual sports rival. Why not Cal State Long Beach? they thought.
Student leaders liked the idea but didn’t develop a plan. Driving home with four friends, however, Dos Santos did. As he describes it now, “We made a fairly spontaneous decision to do something a little on the immature side.”
President Clinton could not have phrased it better.
Dos Santos and his carful of friends drove to the Cal State campus, presumably for reconnaissance work. Their plan on that Sunday was to scope out places where pro-UCI posters or banners would have maximum impact in tweaking Cal State students before the Jan. 24 basketball game between the 49ers and the Anteaters.
That was the rational part of the plan.
Now, for the other part.
As they drove around campus, “the idea just sort of emerged,” Dos Santos says. “We found a water bottle in the parking lot. That was, literally, how haphazard the plan was.”
One of the students--Dos Santos will only say he wasn’t the donor--filled the bottle with urine and left it outside the student center with a note attached: “Peter’s Sweet Nectar: Anteater Elixir.”
From such moments, Dos Santos thought, are rivalries born.
“It was college kids having fun,” Dos Santos says. “There was no political side to it. My intentions were as pure for Long Beach as they were for UCI. We were sort of instigating the rivalry and having a good time and hoping they would come right back at us.”
What the fivesome didn’t know was that Cal State was in the midst of winter break, with the campus virtually empty. Someone undoubtedly found the bottle and note--and perhaps got an unpleasant surprise--but no one knows who.
I talked to Cal State student government leaders this week and asked about the new “rivalry.” It was the first they’d heard of it.
Student senator Teresa Ayala, a senior in business administration, said, “The closest rivals we have would be Cal State Fullerton. As far as the UCs go, it’s kind of interesting they’d choose us to be a rival. UCI was here Saturday night for basketball. We beat them pretty bad [71-63].”
I asked if the prank made news on campus. She put the phone down, and I heard her call out to other student senators in the room, “You guys hear anything about a bottle of pee left on campus?”
Laughter in the background. “They haven’t heard anything,” Ayala said.
Meanwhile, Dos Santos already had added a footnote to his shenanigans when UCI’s Legislative Council met Jan. 13, two days after the prank. Dos Santos asked for and received permission for a closed-door session to discuss something--the rivalry issue. Unfortunately, such executive sessions are allowed for specific reasons, and instigating school rivalries isn’t one of them.
In its next edition, the student newspaper, New University, reacted unhappily. With a front-page banner headline reading, “A.S. Secretly Plots Rivalry Against 49ers,” and an editorial deriding the idea and the improper closed-door meeting, the paper urged censures for Dos Santos and two other students. The editorial noted, however, that a censure was unlikely “since many of the legislative council members reacted with laughter.”
Let me repeat: Thank God for college students.
As January winds down, things seem to have cooled. Dos Santos admits to mistakes in judgment but says students and administrators privately salute him for his intentions.
“We’ve had so many people say a rivalry is a great idea,” he says. “They say, ‘We need spirit and fun every once in a while, and we’re getting a good campus feeling . . . but you know that urine thing was tasteless and vulgar.’ And it was. It really was. But it was in no way meant to be offensive.”
Aram Chaparyan, the president of Associated Students and a political science major, says the organization “in no way endorsed the act [prank].” He thinks Dos Santos and his prankster cohorts acted in good faith but got carried away. More to the point, Chaparyan says, “students are questioning their role as Anteaters,” and he thinks UCI is developing a more cohesive sense of school spirit.
Without question, Chaparyan told me, the incident has been a learning experience: “Next time, don’t leave urine on someone’s campus.”
Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by writing to him at the Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail to dana.parsons@latimes.com