Title: “Offensive Coordinator in the bathroom story”

General Information about Item:

• Genre and Sub Genre
  • Verbal Folklore: Joke

• Language: English

• United States of America

Informant Data:

Name: Alexander Agadjanian

• Dartmouth Class of 2018
• Residence: Hanover, New Hampshire (During the school year), Tempe Arizona (During off-terms)
• Years of association with The Dartmouth: 3rd year
• Age: 20 years old
• Affiliation with Dartmouth Football: Writer for The Dartmouth (Campus Newspaper)

Contextual Data:

• In many college football stadiums, and especially at Dartmouth, the writer’s room is adjacent to the defensive and offensive coordinator’s room and all three parties share the same facilities and bathrooms. As a result, the three parties often interact more often than not, and funny stories that are consistently told throughout the press box are born.

Item:

Verbal Jokes : “Offensive Coordinator in the bathroom story”

• There are several funny jokes that are told every so often in the Dartmouth press box (which is shared by student journalists and local journalists), but one memorable one that is told around the writer’s room is when the Offensive Coordinator is in the bathroom and the team scored a touchdown pass and the assistant coach ran over to the bathroom and knocked on the door to tell the head offensive coach that they have possession of the ball.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Interview with Alexander

Transcript of Associated File:

“So we have press row behind us and there’s a short flight of stairs that takes us to the bathrooms and we actually share those facilities and bathrooms with the team coordinators. At some point, it must have been an offensive coordinator who went to go to the bathroom and a few seconds after he went to the bathroom, his own team got an interception on defense. So the offensive coordinator who is calling all the plays is in the bathroom and his team is back on defense as he just left. So you hear his assistant sprint over to the bathroom and knock on the door and say, “Hey Coach, we just got the ball back, what do you want to call?” and he called a run play as basic as possible and sprinted out. Funny things like that come up every so often.

Once you contextualize all of these different rituals that I mentioned before in this school, obviously this is a school that really values its traditions and rituals and things that are passed on from generation to each new class and you can tell that it is just as meaningful, if not more meaningful, in the context that tradition is really valued.”

Collector’s Comments: 

• Alexander has some memorable interactions with defensive and offensive coordinators that is shared throughout the press box and to new writers. These are told as long story telling jokes to other new writers who may not have heard of it or may not have been in the press box when the situation unfolded. Most of the journalists, regardless of age, maintain very close relationships with one another and engage in conversations throughout the season, allowing for such jokes to be shared from person to person.

Collector’s Name:

Kang Min Daniel Lee

Tags/Keywords:

• Joke
• Verbal Folklore
• Football
• Dartmouth