The sports section, well-known to be the most important, most widely read and most well-written section of the Wheel, has recently suffered an egregious insult. Your vigilante On Fire correspondent is hereby throwing down the gauntlet: he (or she) will not rest until the powers-that-be have made amends and restored the sports section to its proper place of honor. This, your easily-insulted On Fire correspondent solemnly pledges – to the section, to the powers-that-be and to our loyal readers.
The first thing your status-obsessed On Fire correspondent does when opening any issue of the Wheel is check the staff box in the bottom left-hand corner of the Editorials section in order to see where he (or she) and his (or her) fellow sports editors are listed. The question always is, how high are we ranked today?
It goes without saying that the higher one’s name and title is placed in the staff box, the more important that person is to the Wheel. Since, as stated above, the sports section is well known to be the most important section at the Wheel, it seems logical that your On Fire correspondent’s name would be placed at the top.
This has never been so. When your getting-old On Fire correspondent first began writing in this space over two years ago, sports was the third-ranked section at the Wheel, behind News and Editorials. This is obviously a flawed ranking. It goes without saying that News sucks. We at Sports have the utmost respect for Editorials (and would like to give a shout-out to Priyanka Krishnamurthy, our new editor-in-chief and a former Editorials editor), but it simply does not have the sex appeal of Sports.
But at least we were ranked within sight of the top, ranked well-above Student Life, Arts & Entertainment, Copy, Features, Online, Photography and Social Media.
Not so anymore. A few shouting matches between your peaceable On Fire correspondent with the former editor-in-chief and, next thing you know, Copy, Student Life, Arts & Entertainment and Features were moved in front of us.
Not even to mention the fact that your On Fire correspondent’s name was recently misspelled in the staff box. Not to give too much away, but the second half of his (or her) last name was altered from the German word for ditch to a part of the male anatomy.
So we at On Fire have taken it upon ourselves to fix this situation. We have come up with our own rankings for the different sections of the Wheel. They are based on hair.
First, obviously, is the Sports team, consisting of Ryan Smith, Bennett Ostdiek and Zak Hudak. Anyone who has ever seen Zak Hudak’s incredible flow immediately gets weak knees and feels their heart start to beat faster. Not to mention his strong chin and absurdly deep voice. In the words of former Sports Queen Lane Billings, “Zak, congratulations on your hair, congratulations on your bone structure and your writing is as beautiful as your physical appearance.”
Ryan and Bennett are no slouches either. Ryan has a nice flip in the front, which looks awesome coming out from under his Philadelphia Cricket Club hat, and though Bennett is balding, his hair-style is reassuringly professional.
Second place is also not a contest. Editorials, which currently consists only of Rhett Henry, is, quite simply, killing it. The hair on his head is long and blonde, an attribute that your feminist On Fire correspondent likes in girls and respects in Editorials editors.
But it is the hair on his chin, which stretches well down into his neck, that we truly admire and adore.
Third place is a bit of a dark horse – Photography. Thomas Han’s thick black locks are always extremely well-coiffed and look like they belong in a Rogaine commercial. On the other hand, James Crissman’s blonde flow is always casually swept back in a way that suggests casual elegance.
We are placing student life in fourth place. Though Jenna Kingsley was a real downer on the mood of the Sports room when she entered today, her new hair cut does look great.
Finally, to state the obvious, News comes in last. We state this more out of principle than anything – as we have said before and will say again, news sucks.
But when confronted, an anonymous source at News commented in their defense, “the lady at Super Cuts f**ked up.”
And not to be blunt, but Dustin’s hair is problematic.
The Emory Wheel was founded in 1919 and is currently the only independent, student-run newspaper of Emory University. The Wheel publishes weekly on Wednesdays during the academic year, except during University holidays and scheduled publication intermissions.
The Wheel is financially and editorially independent from the University. All of its content is generated by the Wheel’s more than 100 student staff members and contributing writers, and its printing costs are covered by profits from self-generated advertising sales.
