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The Ball State Daily News - BEWILDERED SOCIETY: IU students support streaking history#posted by Dave 2:13:00 AM
A funny thing happened to eight Indiana University freshmen boys on the way to... well, somewhere a couple weeks back.
Some avid readers, those who read something other than the crossword, may have noticed the brief story in the Daily News days later, courtesy of the Indiana Daily Student (IDS). But for those who did not, let's just say aforementioned freshmen were caught with their proverbial and literal pants down.
No... not like that.
As one would assume, they were caught streaking through their wooded campus before police managed to catch up with them on an idle Friday night back in late August.
To be fair, the IDS reported the students to be "wearing only athletic supporters." But hey -- it's all the same. I can only hope for their self-confidence that it was a warm evening.
So what about their reasoning? Well, what else would drive eight college freshmen out the door and across their campus in the nude?
Come to think of it, that's a damn good question.
At last check, the incident was being checked for possible connections to hazing, although the details of situation are a bit hairy. Reason being, six of the eight students were freshmen on the cross country team; and to add insult to nudity, they were the only freshmen on the team.
To quote an update printed in the IDS on Sept. 8, Dean of Students Richard McKaig said that despite admittance of doing the gag on their own pleasure, the case is still being looked into. "We will need to collect all the pieces of the puzzle to find out what happened," McKaig said.
Seems to me they've collected all the pieces they needed.
And although we know that IU's students are quite fond of their bodies in the flesh (See: that one time a few years ago), it goes without saying that these incidents are not isolated to Bloomington.
To better understand, we hop in the Bewildered Society time machine back to the fall semester of 1973. According to Historychannel.com, a new fad was just emerging.
Amongst other things.
The fad was called "streaking," and became extremely popular around college campuses. The stunt was performed just as we know it now (sans "athletic supporters"), typically in front of large crowds of people with authorities chasing from behind.
And you thought your job sucked.
The fad reached its climax in 1974 when public event streaking became the "in" thing... or maybe it was the "out" thing, I don't know.
In the 1990s, the fad lingered around but was never that huge, although periodic bursts of activity were reported at sporting events and universities.
The trend remains popular for students around the country in fraternities; as well as some sports team initiations and certain family reunions in the southern states.
To many spectators' disappointment, sororities never seem to find streaking as popular.
That brings us up to 2004, where the sport of nudity continues even here in the Hoosier state.
As the story goes, the eight students were found hiding in a nearby wooded area after having been pursued on foot by the police. According to the paper, they were handcuffed and taken to the University Police Department headquarters.
Talk about a car ride.
The IDS reported that the students were given a class A misdemeanor for public indecency (not saying much for their appearance) and will be facing a judge sometime in the future.
Clothed, of course.
All things considered, I guess you really cannot criticize the IU boys that much.
At least they have a cross country team.
