A funny thing happened to eight Indiana University freshmen boyson the way to... well, somewhere a couple weeks back.
Some avid readers, those who read something other than thecrossword, may have noticed the brief story in the Daily News dayslater, courtesy of the Indiana Daily Student (IDS). But for thosewho did not, let's just say aforementioned freshmen were caughtwith their proverbial and literal pants down.
No... not like that.
As one would assume, they were caught streaking through theirwooded campus before police managed to catch up with them on anidle Friday night back in late August.
To be fair, the IDS reported the students to be "wearing onlyathletic supporters." But hey -- it's all the same. I can only hopefor their self-confidence that it was a warm evening.
So what about their reasoning? Well, what else would drive eightcollege freshmen out the door and across their campus in thenude?
Come to think of it, that's a damn good question.
At last check, the incident was being checked for possibleconnections to hazing, although the details of situation are a bithairy. Reason being, six of the eight students were freshmen on thecross country team; and to add insult to nudity, they were the onlyfreshmen on the team.
To quote an update printed in the IDS on Sept. 8, Dean ofStudents Richard McKaig said that despite admittance of doing thegag on their own pleasure, the case is still being looked into. "Wewill need to collect all the pieces of the puzzle to find out whathappened," McKaig said.
Seems to me they've collected all the pieces they needed.
And although we know that IU's students are quite fond of theirbodies in the flesh (See: that one time a few years ago), it goeswithout saying that these incidents are not isolated toBloomington.
To better understand, we hop in the Bewildered Society timemachine back to the fall semester of 1973. According toHistorychannel.com, a new fad was just emerging.
Amongst other things.
The fad was called "streaking," and became extremely populararound college campuses. The stunt was performed just as we know itnow (sans "athletic supporters"), typically in front of largecrowds of people with authorities chasing from behind.
And you thought your job sucked.
The fad reached its climax in 1974 when public event streakingbecame the "in" thing... or maybe it was the "out" thing, I don'tknow.
In the 1990s, the fad lingered around but was never that huge,although periodic bursts of activity were reported at sportingevents and universities.
The trend remains popular for students around the country infraternities; as well as some sports team initiations and certainfamily reunions in the southern states.
To many spectators' disappointment, sororities never seem tofind streaking as popular.
That brings us up to 2004, where the sport of nudity continueseven here in the Hoosier state.
As the story goes, the eight students were found hiding in anearby wooded area after having been pursued on foot by the police.According to the paper, they were handcuffed and taken to theUniversity Police Department headquarters.
Talk about a car ride.
The IDS reported that the students were given a class Amisdemeanor for public indecency (not saying much for theirappearance) and will be facing a judge sometime in the future.
Clothed, of course.
All things considered, I guess you really cannot criticize theIU boys that much.
At least they have a cross country team.
Write to Dave at
heydave@bewilderedsociety.com
http://www.bewilderedsociety.com
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