A Real Treadmill

Clare came over yesterday to help me put together a treadmill Michele bought as a Christmas gift for herself.  If only all those holiday car commercials had gotten through to my wife, we’d have a new car, or two new trucks even.  But, no, she gets a treadmill.  Try riding one of those on the back roads to your favorite ski resort.  Oh, well.

After just 3-1/2 hours and minimal cursing (the country of manufacture has a problem matching up screws to holes), we were done.  Of course, at some point I asked about North Central.  Clare told me she and Chris did in fact watch the championship game against the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater; ESPN has a channel numbered between 200-400 for just this sort of thing.  Final score, North Central 41 Wisconsin-Whitewater 14.

My daughter the college administrator was duly impressed by how the victors were plugged in with their alumni, who gave a whole bunch of money to send people to the game in Shenandoah, Texas.  Go online and read the coverage, it seamlessly turns into a recruiting pitch for the school.  Clare also told me that Chris, who got a master’s at North Central while a football graduate assistant there, received an email not even an hour after the game ended.  It included the final score along with a pitch for a donation.  Timing is everything, as they say.

This is how college sports work, as a sort of loss-leader, especially at the D-III level.  Prospective students are sold on the school in part by the quality of its teams and facilities; North Central has been so good at multiple sports for so long there may not even be much, or any, of a loss involved.  I learned a long time ago that the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin plays hardball whatever the sport.  And my partner in treadmill assembly is the better for it.