Whitworth - 44, University of Puget Sound - 27
Whitworth defeated UPS last Saturday 44-27, after a frightening first quarter in which UPS scored more points against Whitworth than any other team has scored in an entire game all season! Fortunately, Whitworth got their act together, and came back to win the game, making them 10-0 for the season for the first time in history, and giving them the Northwest Conference Title outright for the first time in their 100 year football history. It is an exciting time for Whitworth College! The full story is here.
This coming Saturday, Whitworth will host Occidental College (out of Los Angeles), who is 9-0 for the season and who won their third straight Southern California Intercollegiate Athletics Conference title with a 6-0 record this season, for the NCAA Division III first round playoffs. Whitworth and Occidental have never played. Interestingly, I had a full ride to Occidental and accepted admission there in 1972 as an electrical engineering major. I was barely 17 when I graduated from high school, having skipped 5th grade and with a March birthday. My mother decided that I was just too young to go away to school in LA, so she made me go to junior college for a year. Fortunately, Occidental wanted me bad enough that they held my spot for me, and communicated with me frequently. Unfortunately, I met a boy and fell in love (mom didn't see that one coming). I knew he could not get into Occidental; he was bright, but his grades and SAT scores weren't high enough. We started scheming. I decided I'd beg my mom to let me go to UCSB instead. He could get in there, it was close, yada, yada, yada. She relented. She liked him, or she'd never have agreed. I applied, got in (never any doubt), and all was good. Then my advisor at Occidental called. He had heard a nasty rumor, he said, that I was not going to go to Oxy. I confirmed his suspicions. He was very disappointed, told me he hoped the best for me, but thought I was making a mistake, and that was the last I heard from him, of course.
I did go to UCSB, I did marry my boyfriend, and there were lots of good things that transpired. But there were lots of bad things too, and I can't help but wonder how things would have been different had I gone to Occidental. Knowing what I know now about Whitworth, and what these small liberal arts colleges are like, well, it makes me wish I'd gone to Occidental. Instead of being student #45832, as I was at UCSB, I'd have been Gina. Instead of sitting in Calc 210 and Physics 150 with 300 other students, being lectured by a professor who couldn't care less about me, who didn't know if I was in class or not, I'd have had professors who knew my name, who would have worried if I missed class more than once, who would have paid attention to the fact that my grades were horrible. I may have actually stayed in engineering, or gone into architecture like I wanted (I figured it was a great blend of art and engineering), or become the female Bill Gates (hey, it could have happened!). Instead, I ended up on academic probation, switched to majors from electrical engineering to art, got my grades back up after 5 quarters on probation (deadlines...they work so well on me), but then took a leave of absence during my last quarter of my senior year after my mom died....and never went back, never got my degree. I can't help but wonder..... Occidental has always had a special place in my heart, but I hope Whitworth kicks their butt!
Go Pirates!
