This is great news for all my readers who are obsessed with the decision-making process of athletic boys that are still a few months shy of being able to buy porno mags, cigarettes, or vote in elections, although if they're Jewish, they've been bar mitzvahed for a few years now. Never mind the fact a) most of the kids decided where they'd go to college months ago b) you've never seen any of them, unless you take creepiness to a whole new level, and c) Signing Day is a primarily pointless event which people act really excited about even though generally nothing really happens. To quote Otto from Spread Far the Fame, "You’re cheering a high school kicker. What has your life come to?"
For the rest of us, it's an awkward celebration of people who most likely won't contribute to Northwestern football while I'm an undergraduate student. (That sound you hear is me weeping blood.)
Today is a day for the using of fax machines, the putting on of school logo emblazoned baseball caps nobody ever wears unless it's signing day or they play for the school's baseball team, and of new beginnings.
Here's to the 17+ kids who wrote down their name on a piece of paper today and will deeply regret it in a year when they have to wake up at 9:45 to walk through six inches of snow to go to class at Kresge and their teacher doesn't know or care that they play football only to have some academic adviser be pissed at them for getting a B-minus while their high school friends who went to EVERY OTHER SCHOOL IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA naps, plays video games, and introduces himself to girls with "hey, my name's (blank), I'm on the football team" and they actually care about it.
But at the end of the day, they'll probably be pretty damn pleased that they're at a school where we consistently win football games and when every last damn one of those 17+ kids graduates, just like every damn class of ours does, 4-5 years from now, they'll realize it was probably a damn good call.
Congrats, boys. Welcome to Northwestern.
Comment along if you must.
And by the way, can we just once have a kid who needs to make a last-minute decision between us and another school and put on a Northwestern hat at a press conference? Can we at least convince someone who knows he's coming to Northwestern to pretend like he isn't for a few days so that we get to see somebody put on a hat? As much as I just deaded signing day, that would be kind of cool. I'd get pumped.