This is New York City, the hungriest sports town in America. It is the mecca of basketball, where the Brooklyn Nets and New York Knicks ball. It’s home to the greatest baseball team ever, the Yankees. And it houses a combined five Superbowl championships between the Giants and Jets. Across all five boroughs people live and die for their teams. Sport is religion in New York and the field, court, and ice, are the churches.
There’s a basketball team right in front of you, The New School. Yeah, your Narwhals are gearing up for their biggest and best season yet. We have new coaches, new commitment, new players, new shirts and Narwhal toys, and a brand new mascot. In its fifth year, the basketball team is finally taking flight. During the past seasons, the team suffered from lack of administrative support, money, and uncommitted players and coaches plagued the program. All of those problems are gone, but we need you, our fellow New School students.
This is your team, students. We fight for you. We go to battle for Parsons and for Lang. On the court, we move like Jazz music, improvising and gliding along to create something beautiful. What’s more dramatic than a close sports game, Drama students? This is a student run team, with some help from the higher-ups, but not a lot. Our coaches are former students at The New School and our team president and organizers are current students. This commonality has brought the team closer together, something that manifests itself on the court. Whether it’s helping one of our brothers off the floor after he’s fallen or giving another one encouragement if he’s struggling, we’re always there for each other.
You, our academic peers, voted for the team name last fall. Then we didn’t see you at our games. You laughed at our faces when we told you that we were on the basketball team. You don’t realize, though, that we’re good. We push the ball, we lock in tight on defense. We yell and scream. We hit, scrap, fight, claw our way to victories. We don’t quit, we don’t cheat the game. And it’s all for The New School.
So don’t laugh. Do we laugh when you tell us about your one person show chronicling the history of cigarettes? No. Do we call you stupid for your art show about underappreciated book covers of the twentieth century? No. Do we brush off your need to critically analyze and pick apart the newest Hollywood blockbuster? No. And we don’t do any of that because The New School is all about acceptance and tolerance, which is great. So why can’t you accept your fellow students and friends giving their everything for the name on the front of their jersey? We do it all for The New School.
You don’t even have to like basketball. You don’t have to know anything about it. You can come to our games against Cooper Union, or the Culinary Institute of America, or Pratt and just yell and scream with us. Boo our opponents and cheer for us. Be part of history. Twenty years from now, when the Narwhals are a powerhouse program, don’t you want to say that you were there from the (almost) beginning? Don’t you want to be part of the movement?
I’ve spent my whole life in New York City and nothing brings New Yorkers together like sports. Nothing causes more pain and joy than sports. It’s something to talk about, something we all have in common. Even if you’re not going to root for us, that’s cool, but come to a game to see great basketball. Team basketball. Pure shooting and all-out hustle. Crisp passes and tenacious defense. Desire. Let the Narwhals bring The New School closer together as a community.
Our first game is on November 1 against Cooper Union. It’s going down at 330 E 21st St. between First and Second Avenues. We’re running until March and the full schedule will be available soon. Pick up a new religion and visit the Church of the Narwhals. You won’t be disappointed.
Max is a Journalism major from Queens. He plays collegiate basketball for The New School Narwhals and spends the rest of his time watching and writing about the game.
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