Wednesday, November 23, 2005

The b-word invades the universe

bed·lam bdlm (n.)
A place or situation of noisy uproar and confusion.


Ask just about anybody in my small town (or my small state for that matter) what their interpretation of the word "bedlam" is and the absolute last and final definition they'll give you is the actual meaning of the word.

For you see, the b-word has been the unofficial label of the annual football match between the University of Oklahoma (OU) and Oklahoma State University (OSU).

Actually, the media seems to bandy about the bed-word at any mention of any contest at anytime and anywhere whatsoever between the two rival 4-year funhouses. Note - (I'm not sure if that applies to Badminton matches between the two schools. Although "Bedlam Badminton" does have many possiblities for marketing madness due to the b-sound alliteration. Retailers, take note.)

There seem to be bedlam contests spewing forth from every outlet offering any sort of merchandise or service vaguely related to football.


Big Bedlam Sales!
Boisterous Bedlam Announcers!
Booming Bedlam Radio Ads!
Brawling, brutal, bold, barbarous, and bloodthirsty attempts to capitalize and exploit the once-a-year event.



Alas, even C's elementary school has gotten into the fracas. The notice she brought home in her backpack read,"Bring in your Box-Tops for Education, and drop them into the box of whichever Bedlam Team you're rooting for."Sure enough, in the lobby of the school we found two boxes - red/white and orange/black.

OSU's season is in the toilet, so they're just playing for bragging rights and to spoil any bowl hopes that OU may have.

We'll be celebrating my lovely and talented wife's birthday all that weekend, so bedlam won't invade our abode at any point in time. Not every day my wife turns 29, er, 39...ah, 39+ again.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

OU is 6-4 and will head to a bowl, win or lose on Saturday. If they lose, they probably won't get higher than the Independence Bowl. If they win, it could be the Holiday Bowl in San Diego (which is a rough trip for the University because of the distance, low bowl payout, and after-Christmas timing of the game, but still a decent bowl).

OSU is already 4-6 and will not be bowl-eligible no matter what happens on Saturday.

OKDad said...

Thanks for the update, Matt. Anyone want to venture a guess as to where "Bedlam Matt" hangs his hat?

Unfortunately, I'll be paying more attention to the UCLA-USC matchup going on out west on Dec 3rd.

It's the closet thing to "Bedlam" that the SoCal-ites can muster and in this case, a national ranking and opportunity to play for what SHOULD have been a third straight national championship (recall the BCS fiasco in 2003 where #2 LSU and #3 OU played for the championship) hangs in the balance.

I dislike USC, but feel they got the shaft that year.

If UCLA can pull off an upset (fat chance), it'll make a lot of Longhorn fans happy.

OKDad said...

re: thang against SC -- My Mom did her undergrad at UCLA, but did her graduate work at SC. She even taught at SC for a few years. She still roots for the Bruin over Tommy Toe-jam.

My best bud went to USC and got his Dental degree from there as well. His father went there, so that's where his bias came from. We enjoy cheering opposing teams whenever they meet. It's a tradition.

UCLA Film School has always gone the more independent way of production, as opposed to USCinema's mini-studio system. I have colleagues from both schools, have worked on many productions at both schools, and was even accepted into the USC Graduate film program (along with AFI, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Loyola, Univ. of Illinois at Carbondale, and a few other smaller grad film programs).

I chose UCLA when I found out at the time that there were over 750 applicants for 30 spots. I figured I'd be in an elite group there, so I became a Bruin. All USC wanted to know was if I qualifed for student aid or had a big checkbook. Seriously.

I'll always cheer on a Pac-10 team over any other, so my dislike for SC can only go so far. Just seems that the Pac-10 teams have been so outclassed in the NCAA realm of late, that they'll get my support.

Seeing SC trounce the Longhorns in the run for the Roses would be sweet. Being an Okie now, my distaste for just about anything Texan (okay, Austin is cool, San Antonio rocks, and the Alamo is a fun place to visit) spills over into the sports world as well.

And for some reason, I like to watch Notre Dame win as well. Probably from watching that darn "Rudy" movie too often on TBS.