The Tigers made it back to Atlanta, just in time for exam week – but sadly there won’t be any doctor’s notes handed out to those who attend this weekend’s game. University administrators have looked to the stage actors for guidance on this one, and despite the gravity of a potential SEC Championship, the exam show must go on. 7:30 a.m., Monday morning – don’t forget your blue book.
Consequently, the task of scrounging up last-minute academic motivation to run the gauntlet of finals becomes all the more difficult. Yesterday, though, I read an obituary for Gertrude Ederle, one of the most hardcore women in the history of the world.
The first female to swim the English Channel, her remarkable accomplishments made me realize that a few long essays on the importance of the electoral college aren’t exactly going to kill me.
So, with finals creeping up, let’s put things in perspective – and remember Ms. Ederle, a true American hero who passed away this weekend.
Ederle’s status as female athlete-extraordinaire didn’t begin with her successful attempt in 1926, but two years earlier in the 1924 Paris Olympics, due to a decision that should make all of the fairer sex be glad they live in 2003,
Ederle and her female teammates were forced to bunk up more than FIVE hours away from their practice and competition venues in the City of Lights. The reason? The United States didn’t want its lovely ladies to be corrupted by the immoral, Bohemian influence of Paris.
Racked with commuter-induced fatigue, she still came away with a gold medal and two bronzes, and presumably avoided impregnation, inebriation or exploitation at the hands of the nomadic French improv theater groups. I’ll take an exam over a five-hour train ride and laps at the pool, thank you very much.
Erderle’s next morsel of adversity came a year later, when she was poised to stun the world with her first attempt to swim the channel. Despite completing a majority of the task in record time, a boat monitoring her effort thought she was drowning, and touched her – grounds for disqualification. The conscious (and quite agitated) Ederle assured everyone she was only resting.
Just a year later, Ederle was set to take another shot, this time sans the morons in the boat. She was so set on completing her groundbreaking achievement that she instructed her watchers no one was to touch her – no matter how bad she may look.
Because of the freezing water she would be forced to negotiate, this time Erderle covered her body in layers of all kinds of fun stuff – lard, sheep grease and petroleum jelly, just to name a few.
The day was also a violent one for the Channel, so much so that a small craft advisory was in effect. The choppy seas prevented Erderle from making her swim a straight shot, so she ended up swimming a full 14 MILES farther than most who made the trip.
Despite all of this, the greased-up, weary woman emerged on the other side faster than any of the five men who had already conquered the Channel. She covered nearly 35 miles of uncooperative water in just over fourteen and a half hours.
I like to think of folks like Gertrude when the academic walls seem to be tumbling down, because all of us can grab a little inspiration from her repeated victories in the face of adversity.
Take comfort when the evil professor is handing out the finals, knowing at least you’re not about to cover yourself in lard and swim 13 hours through freezing waves. You’ll be done in less than two – and still be bone dry.