President Jim Yong Kim apologized to Harvard for the heckling done by a dozen Dartmouth students during a Dartmouth-Harvard squash match.

    I know what you’re thinking: “While he’s at it, why not stop with their nuclear program?”
    Yeah, me too! But then I found out President Kim is the president of Dartmouth, not North Korea. And then I found out Harvard has the # 5 squash team in the country… and then I found out people are heckling squash! Squash! Let me repeat! They care enough to heckle squash players! Hecklers in the Ivy League! And then I found out when high brow Ivy Leaguers heckle, their language is no more elevated than the rest of us.  
 
    What a letdown. I was expecting some special snobby preppy heckles. You too!? Yeah, it was just “Harvard sucks!” and “You’re a despicable human being” and “You’re so rattled” and then they called the women players “whores” and “sluts” and then it went to anti-Semitic terms to  genitalia terms and sex-act terms and downhill from there. There was nothing new or witty or elevated. Yeah, I know. What are they teaching in these Ivy League schools? At Dartmouth, hidden in the mountains of New Hampshire? Not how to write witty heckles, that’s for sure.
    To their credit, the Harvard women squash players despite being pelted with catcalls and derogatory slurs beat their Dartmouth opponents 9-0. The Harvard men won 6-3.

    Three hundred spectators turned out for these matches. Dartmouth officials said the normal turnout is about 50 so there was not enough security to handle the larger crowd. Within the larger crowd was the soccer team who also happened to be most of the hecklers. The soccer captain later wrote an apology to the Dartmouth community saying his team is accustomed to being heckled when playing away matches and just assumed all sports were treated the same.  

    Dartmouth guys needs to sharpen up their heckles. Stay clean, yet witty. Stay above the belt and within the realm of political correctness. If they stray, they may be booted from the Ivy League. Do you doubt me? Sports wise, they’ve been on a short leash. Their football team got into a brawl with Holy Cross in 2006. They’re trying to get people to forget that incident. It’s not like they’re Miami but … Holy Cross? You can’t beat up a bunch of nuns and not get a few askance looks. Fight with a state college and no one cares. But rip up a few vestments and stomp on their collars and you’re a priest beater.

    Dartmouth doesn’t need to lose the League. They’ve done their best to curb idiotic student behavior. They’ve come a ways since the 2006 football fight and the incident where fraternity boys broke up a Native American Columbus Day drumming circle. Their heckling manners are not helping.

    We suggest the soccer team and other potential hecklers contact Fred Meyer with the Dartmouth Stand-up group to brush up their act. Go down to the Lone Pine Tavern, talk to Fred and the guys and nip this being-booted-from-the-Ivy-League thing in the bud.
Break open a thesaurus, if necessary. Throw out heckles that makes an opponent scratch his head. Hit them with clean, clever slang. Make Mrs. Cohen say, after her son has been heckled and beaten “Yes, my son lost but I must compliment those hecklers on their erudition.”  If she does that, Dartmouth stays in the Ivy League.