While discussing the Pope's abdication today with a cloistered Monk from upstate NY, we were both pleasantly surprised to learn that he was a lifelong fan of St. John's and that he clandestinely catches every possible game. He confided to me that he suffered extra penance in his life at the monastery because most of the monks there are apostate and root for Syracuse.
As our discussion came to a close he pulled out a weathered parchment and told me not to read it until he was gone. Although it was in Latin and illuminated, after a few hours of translation (my Latin is very rusty) I was able to finish and this is what I discovered:
A Psalm for Syracuse
If you’re there, and aware
And the injustice great enough that you care
Then on bended knee I beg
End this torture of my soul
Visit true justice upon the whining mole
Every cover-up, every academic fraud
Aren’t these an affront to the lord?
Every phony President’s committee
Charges dropped, arrests always cleared
You who invented statistics surely know something is weird
Keep the mole safe and healthy
His staff and players too
I have a few suggestions about justice
but apropos is up to you
Each player’s painful post career lesson
That doesn’t need redressing
That refs on courts
And judges in courts
Are two unrelated things
Of entirely different sorts
Is punishment enough
Let every Newhouse attendee learn their role
By explaining away the hole
Forty plus years, no championships, no wins,
Just regrets and all those sins,
Just four words of epitaph as the career exit bell does toll
Not way to go Orange but
Lack of institutional control
A(red)MEN
As our discussion came to a close he pulled out a weathered parchment and told me not to read it until he was gone. Although it was in Latin and illuminated, after a few hours of translation (my Latin is very rusty) I was able to finish and this is what I discovered:
A Psalm for Syracuse
If you’re there, and aware
And the injustice great enough that you care
Then on bended knee I beg
End this torture of my soul
Visit true justice upon the whining mole
Every cover-up, every academic fraud
Aren’t these an affront to the lord?
Every phony President’s committee
Charges dropped, arrests always cleared
You who invented statistics surely know something is weird
Keep the mole safe and healthy
His staff and players too
I have a few suggestions about justice
but apropos is up to you
Each player’s painful post career lesson
That doesn’t need redressing
That refs on courts
And judges in courts
Are two unrelated things
Of entirely different sorts
Is punishment enough
Let every Newhouse attendee learn their role
By explaining away the hole
Forty plus years, no championships, no wins,
Just regrets and all those sins,
Just four words of epitaph as the career exit bell does toll
Not way to go Orange but
Lack of institutional control
A(red)MEN
