Chapter Five: How Green Was My Freshman

After the kid held back at the last moment from rushing the field during Homecoming, thus avoiding a $700 fine, I sighed with maternal relief that the worst of possible freshman follies was over. The kid was more mature than I gave him credit for.

Was I wrong.

Picture the first snowfall of the year. Everyone had been waiting for it. The kid told me of an '02 girl from Hawaii, who all fall had loved the novelty of wearing scarves and gloves and was fashionably looking forward to experiencing the first flakes. When they finally fell late one night, the expected happened. Who, after all, can resist picking up a handful of fresh snow and rounding it into a perfect sphere? Certainly not the kid. Having filled a bucket with snow, he and several other snow warriors climbed out on the roof outside his dorm window and pelted students down on the ground. It was 2 a.m. and everyone was having a grand time. Well, maybe not everyone, for the campus police showed up. "We scattered," the kid told me. "But the bucket in the room gave us away." And so, soggy-gloved and rosy-cheeked, the kid incurred the first fine of his college career. "I got lucky," he reassured me, "They only fined me for being on the roof. They could have also fined me for throwing snowballs." Snowballs, it seems, fall under the no-no category of hurling a projectile (fine: $50). The kid had to pay his roof fine ($100) and a visit to the dean.

The kid experienced some College-sanctioned fun as well. Having given up crew early in the term because it required so much time ("I need to study," he told me, and I was glad to hear it), he took up rugby. In addition to their own scrimmages, the freshmen served as the practice team for the varsity ruggers, who scrummed their way to the Northeast championship.

One of the greatest out-of-classroom events of the term, according to the kid and his friends: the Programming Board-sponsored evening of professional wrestling, featuring Kid USA, Jimmy Superfly Snooka, Tony Atlas, Dave Vicious, Master Sandy, Jamie West, and the student crowd's all-time fave, Tito Santana. (Jesse "The Body" Ventura must have been too busy training for the Minnesota governorship to join the cast.) "It was old-school time," the kid raved, "These were all the wrestlers we grew up watching."

The other crowdpleaser—Dartmouth men's basketball against seventhranked University of North Carolinatook place just after students had hunkered down for finals and left town for break. Tickets sold out in 24 minutes. The kid was lucky enough to get one. Several of his friends returned to Hanover for the game. No one expected Dartmouth to win, but when the Big Green kept nipping at the Tar Heels' heels, the fans went wild. Sure, UNC won, but the final score was a respectable 82-68. And in a post-game press conference UNC's coach Bill Guthridge praised key Dartmouth forward Shaun Gee '00 and guard Greg Buth '01, saying they "could play for anyone."

With that last gasp of fall term behind him, the kid spent the rest of winter break online with his Dartmouth friends. "I can't wait to go back," he kept saying. Was it for the new classes ("psych, astro, and econ") he'd be taking? Or merely to get up to more freshmania? As I was pondering these questions, a letter from the College arrived for the "Parents of..." The kid's grades. (All respectable; apparently the legendary work hard, play hard Dartmouth rep is true.) And a letter from Dean of First-Year Students Peter Goldsmith. "Greetings and congratulations! You have survived your son's or daughter's first term at Dartmouth...." it began. "The first term of college is often the beginning of a period of personal growthusually wonderful, frequently mystifying. Be assured that an adult WILL emerge at the end of the process...." I'm surprised at how grateful I feel at this official reassurance. Still, I'm thinking, "If not, do we get our money back?"

Pro-wrestler wannabe Kevin "The Shirt" Goldman '99 debates wrestling's finer points with Delicious Dave Vicious.