What
was announced as the “single largest event in law school history”, and was
aimed to be the pre-game to great celebrations, turned out to be a great
disappointment.
On
Thursday, Columbia’s Levien Gym opened its doors to host what is by now an
important part of NYU-Columbia rivalry: the Deans’ Cup. Once a year, NYU and
Columbia Law Schools assemble a team of students, exercise hard, and compete in
a charity basketball game for pride and honor. Now, it is necessary to show
color: Bright Blue or Purple-Black?
It
is probably the only moment, when the rivalry between Columbia and NYU shrouded
in legend openly breaks out; throughout the rest of the year, it is rather
dormant. In fact, many students of each university make use of the possibility
to cross-register; interesting events or parties are shared and attended
together – why should one’s law school affiliation be of any issue here? We
even have shared LLM-couples and almost every LLM is part of the both LLM Facebook
groups (FOMO…). And the few attempts of teasing by NYU students are usually answered
by us Columbians with a mild and nonchalant smile: NYWHO is trying to make fun
of our calm resort of deep thought?
Preparations
for the game have been highly professional and absolutely America: The game was
advertised almost from the day we arrived at Columbia Law School. Tickets were sold
weeks in advance. Students have been racking their brains in a competition for
the best fan-t-shirt design. Each player was introduced individually via the
Facebook page. Pre-game beer and snacks were served. Materials to design
posters and free swag (including quite intrusive bells) for the game were
distributed. The day of the game, virtually everybody wore his or her Columbia wear.
When
the game finally started, there was actually an impressive atmosphere in Levien
Gym. Sitting opposite to each other, NYU- and Columbia-students competed for
who is louder. A band was playing, the players were sprinting and scoring, fans
were cheering. The first half was fun – both teams engaged in a hard fight, and
showed their skills especially in throwing penalty shots – it was a highly
competitive game.
And in the second half, our Columbian
players seemed to have been bedeviled. Whatever they tried, the ball bounced
out of the basket. Well, and without
constantly scoring…
