Natural Science Forum / Earth Science / Oceanography / October 2003

Everyone knows you choose a graduate school based on the quality of the
school's football team.  By that metric, given the current BCS rankings
you would want to go to:

Miami
USC
Florida State (I think they have an Oceanography program)

Those are the only three schools listed in the top 25 that I think have
mich in the way of an oceanography program.  Of the remaining schools, UW
just beat OSU and UH plays in the WAC not the PAC-10.  You never hear
about URI but then I am on the west coast of the U.S. so my ranking them
after UW/OSU/UH may be a regional thing.  Of course, UCSD/SIO is a school
for surfers with the San Diego Chargers being the major college football
franchise in San Diego and WHOI/MIT doesn't even have a football team so
who would want to go there?  The wild card in this is TAMU and to a
lesser extent programs like LSU.  The Aggies used to have a strong
program but I never hear about them anymore so they may have fallen on
hard times due to increased drug testing frequency and or sanctions and
probation.  Again, regional differences in football coverage make it
difficult for me to judge the quality of their program.  However, one
cannot ever count out a Texas school in the bowl hunt so if you're a
gambler, maybe you would take a roll of the dice and go there.  It's a
tough call.  

In the UK, they play rugby.  Rugby.  I mean, how can a 350-lb steroid
addled 21-yr old playing as freshman take a sport like rugby seriously?  
You don't even get to wear pads or a helmet or tight pants and the
cheerleaders are as likely to break a beer stein over your head as give
you head after the game.  On the plus side, you do get to kill people
rooting for the opposing team in the pre- and post-game riots.  Even
given that benefit, my opinion is that you would have to put SOC and UEA
at the bottom of the heap, or scrum maybe.  

-Bill "UW, where the zero tolerance is for getting caught" Asher