“Randolph Tech,” Mr. Newburger said, making up another college.

January 15, 2016 12:06 PM

The (completely fake) 1941 football season of the (completely fake) Plainfield Teachers College.
posted by Chrysostom (12 comments total)

It should keep playing the rest of the season.

Fantastic.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:21 PM on January 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

He was especially suspicious of Slippery Rock Teachers in Pennsylvania.

He is not the only person who finds Slippery Rock delightful.
posted by Etrigan at 12:25 PM on January 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

Well, they still had a better record than Chicago during the same period.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:28 PM on January 15, 2016

"as corporeal as meat loaf"
posted by infinitewindow at 12:30 PM on January 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

Slippery Rock is not far from here - most of my high school teachers went there - and it's not actually super great.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:42 PM on January 15, 2016

Now I really want one of the "Property of Plainfield Teachers Athletics" t-shirts.
posted by RakDaddy at 12:51 PM on January 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

The colors were Mauve and Puce. And that didn't tip anyone off.
posted by Hactar at 1:18 PM on January 15, 2016

A classic hoax, thanks for the post! (I read about it years ago; could it possibly have been Robert Lipsyte's column?)
posted by languagehat at 1:28 PM on January 15, 2016

For some unknown reason the announcement of Slippery Rock scores were a tradition at University of Texas home games for a number of years. Slippery Rock t-shirts and pullovers were common in Austin. I think their cheerleaders even visited here once for a game...
posted by jim in austin at 2:11 PM on January 15, 2016

I love the alma mater so very much.
posted by yeolcoatl at 7:59 PM on January 15, 2016

Around 1992 I spent part of a summer at a camp at Eastern Washington U. There I learned that the school had just lately killed off one of its sports teams... baseball? due to budget constraints. In protest to the dissolution of the team, the school paper continued to report on the progress of the EWU Eagles through the course of the season.
posted by Sunburnt at 12:04 AM on January 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

Slippery Rock played Michigan in 2014, basically only because their name is to great.
posted by fitnr at 10:56 AM on January 17, 2016 [1 favorite]