The Day After Volleyball: Thoughts on Finality, Legacies, and that Whiteboard Drawing

First off, let’s talk about that whiteboard drawing that became famous last night. If you don’t know which one I’m talking about, let me bring you up to speed:

It says “…To hell (with) the Huskers” and shows the Stanford tree, the dumbest mascot in college sports, don’t @ me, or do, I could use the followers, aiming a gun at Herbie (who’s holding a football for some reason) and flipping him off. Also, as Mr. Greg Mehochko, head of the Five Hearts Podcast here on CornNation pointed out, the tree has two right hands. I guess the Stanford volleyball players, managers, and coaches can’t be good at everything.

Now, I’m adding this to add credibility, not to say, “Look who my friends are!”, but I am married to a woman who played volleyball at UNK, Markeya Dubbs (Peteranetz). I have played on Sunday nights for years with Allison McNeal and Lindsey Licht (Jones) and am friends with Cecilia Hall. While I didn’t get to ask Cici about it, Alli, Lindsey, and Keya all said that the only big deal is the gun. And the fact that it made it out into the world.

I saw on Twitter someone called it a hair dryer. False. It’s a gun. That imagery is a bridge too far for me, a teacher. I think it’s definitely something that should have been thought out better. I really don’t have a problem with a middle finger extended. Keya (my wife), even mentioned that one of her teammates would make comments about the family of their opponents in the locker room. calling them ugly and other things that are maybe unexpected. In fact, Alli relayed that she regularly heard things that would’ve made the anthropomorphic tree on the white board blush. She didn’t tell me what they were nor did she say whether it was something said to the team or shared in a small group.