A Spartan Saturday night, right out of Greek tragedy

That's right. The seemingly harmless mascot best known in these parts for having his crotch rammed into the upright at Michigan Stadium. We've all laughed as the cheerleaders held his limbs, lined him up and plowed him into the pole as an exclamation point on a double-digit win.

No, you say. He's just a clown. And he's got a good heart. Did we not see him a few years ago in the ESPN studios, helping to carry Kerri Strug - a wounded American hero?

David Wallace

And, you add, look at his face. Is that the face of one who incites a riot? His features tell a different story of a simple life: the permanent grimace, implying a look of puzzlement as though he had just been asked to differentiate an equation. Maybe the guy in green body paint and boxer shorts could have been involved, but not Sparty!

Oh, how wrong you are. First, I doubt that the wiry green guy seen in the crowd at Spartan games could have been involved. If he was, he likely died in one of the fires and hasn't been discovered yet. But Sparty, oh yes, I'm sure he wanted his own little Peloponnesian War last Saturday.

Thanks to the media, playing Thucydides in this millennium, we all saw police cars capsized in the streets like Athens' ships in the decisive battle.

Now this was no scene of destruction that could have come about under the leadership of soft college students. Granted, I've never tried to overturn a car, but I know that it would require immense strength.

Many students working together could accomplish such a feat, you say? Hah! A coordinated effort from students in an obviously drunken state - I think not. Only someone from a military city-state bred for battle could do such deeds.

Look at Sparty. He stands seven feet tall. And his body would make Mark McGwire stop wearing muscle shirts. I mean, Sparty looks like he downs Andro daiquiries at the campus watering hole, or maybe the rec building.

I don't know for sure what it was that set him off. To show such good humor for years and yet hail from Sparta, well, he must have been suppressing his nature. The irony had to eat away at him - Spartans, the soldiers who never lost, suffering ignominious defeats on the athletic field of battle throughout the decade.

Then things changed this year, led by the Spartan basketball team. Victories piled up and rival nations fell, including our own maize and blue. Ancient glories were recaptured.

But the Spartans could not crawl out of the shadow of Duke - college basketball's Periclean Athens. Duke: the richest, the most influential, and the most cultured. And at the head of Duke's empire, Pericles for our time, coach Mike Krzyzewski. His influence carrying across states, he assembles talent yearly into the most admired program in the land.

The Spartans played their familiar role. Disrespected. Brutish. Unrefined. Sparty shined his armor, waiting to repeat history and storm Attica. The years of bruised pride, the bad-mouthing of haughty neighbors, it would end here.

But events didn't exactly unfold as they did thousands of years ago. Duke would not play the role of the defeated Athens, and instead marched through the Spartan attack unscathed. The Spartan team accepted the loss, but I'm sure it was too much for Sparty.

He must have seen things weren't going well and caught an early plane back to East Lansing. Impossible you say? I don't know how he did it either. Maybe the gods were involved.

But here's the clincher for me: Sparty as we know him was born in 1989. That's right, he's only 10 years old. Now, assuming you can give MSU students a little credit, they are adults. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt and say they act like it. Now I ask you, were the actions of last Saturday night those of adults, or the kind of destruction only a giant 10-year-old with reservoirs of strength could wreak?

Thank you. I knew you'd come around to my way of seeing it. Sparty's story, the collapse of MSU, is right out of Greek tragedy. For us Michigan students, it was a little uncomfortable seeing the Spartans in what are usually our heroic exploits. We've all probably got a little touch of schadenfreude after the fall. I know I feel a little.

But personally, as a Michigander, I feel sad more than anything.

- David Wallace can be reached over

e-mail at davidmw@umich.edu.

Exile on Maynard St.

04-01-99