I am a Tug of Warrior!

As predicted, the mighty Rice Owls have retaken the national #4 ranking on their path to an inevitable #1 seed and College World Series championship. In honor of this ascent, I hereby devote my second consecutive post to sports. This time, instead of focusing on NCAA sports, I am focusing on the annual MBA Tournament, a multi-sport competition between European MBA schools. As we are the the smallest program by far, IMD is to the MBAT as Rice is to the NCAA. Hence, I expect no less from IMD than total victory.

I will be coaching the three volleyball events (indoor 6s, beach 2s, and beach 4s) and the tug of war. Recruiting for volleyball was no problem but the tug of war required some extra effort. Following is an excerpt from the email I sent to our class:

"In the interest of full disclosure, you should know that this won’t be a cake walk recreational event. Other teams with larger student pools from which to choose will likely be bigger and stronger than our team. But I’ve never lost in Tug of War and I don’t intend to start this May.

We will tug smarter, not harder, than our opposition. We will destroy them through use of the IMD secret double palm rope technique. We will fortify ourselves every day with bananas, apples, and glorious, glorious desserts. Well, weekdays at least. We will fortify ourselves with [fighting] spirits as well. We will unleash a furious rope tuggery the likes of which the MBAT has never seen and will never see again. We will rain down victory after victory upon our opponents until they beg for our sweet, terrible mercy. The futility of their struggle will sustain us as the fly sustains the spider.

This is not for the faint of heart, but join me and together we will attain the highest glory in the history of the universe . . . MBAT Tug of War Champions."

It had the desired effect. We now have more than enough for a team. Some select responses:

From Bevan, New Zealander:

"My Lord and Master.
I will tug with the fury of a thousand sheep.
With feet rooted like the mighty Kauri tree.
With hair flowing in the vigorous breeze like a B-movie actor.
Oh, I will tug like my very Economics grade depends on it."

From Memed, Turk:

"Convinced! I’m in, sign me up!
Ask the French why they have a saying in French “Fort comme un Turc”
I’m ready to unleash some Ottoman explosive fury that Euros seem to have forgotten a bit too quick.
Anybody got some face paint? "

This sounds like too much fun. Now if only we didn't have all this work to distract us from training!