Happy April Fools’ Day! You are reading an article written for our April Fools’ edition of the newspaper, The Deceiver. This is a work of satire.
UMBC men’s basketball head coach Ryan Odom created headlines across the nation last week after the Retrievers lost to Vermont in the America East championship. The Retrievers were ravaged with injuries throughout the season, so the athletics department decided to take action to prevent this from happening again.
How do they plan to do this? Well, following the game Odom announced that players will now be forced to practice in oven mitts, “Well it’s pretty simple, RJ, Max and Brandon all suffered hand injuries that significantly impacted their seasons,” Odom said.
When asked how the new policy would affect sophomore-center Daniel Akin, who suffered a knee injury, coach Odom was more than ready to answer. “Well, we’ve dumped boatloads of cash into the research, and top scientists have suggested creating oven mitts for the knee,” he explained.
According to Odom, the oven mitts would cost roughly $500 a piece which is easily in the athletic department’s budget. But, for Akin’s special knee oven mitt, the price will be much more costly. The knee oven mitt will cost roughly $500,000 to purchase for Akin. Unfortunately, this was not in the athletic department’s budget.
But, luckily SGA president Collin Sullivan came to the rescue. Sullivan couldn’t stand to see the basketball team miss an opportunity to keep their star player healthy. So in conjunction with the Senate, Sullivan decided to cut 50 percent of the SGA’s entire budget, and donate that money to the basketball team. “It just seemed like the most appropriate way to allocate the student activity fee,” said Sullivan.
Time will tell if this innovation will successfully cure the team’s injury woes, but one thing is for sure: even in athletics, UMBC is dedicated to scientific innovation.
