electoral college football

Robert Rubino

Hyena U. emerged victorious over Jackass State today despite being outscored 28-21.

 

It’s the first football game played under the new so-called presidential election rule, which places a premium on quarters won rather than total points scored.

 

The Jackasses led 10-0 after the first quarter but the Hyenas won each of the next three quarters by one point, 7-6, thus ensuring victory under the new rule.

 

The Jackasses called timeout in the closing seconds with the ball on the Hyenas’ one-yard line but officials voted 5-4 to let the clock run out.

 

“I was adamantly opposed to this ludicrous, unnecessary rule change because I feared something like this might happen,” Jackass coach Jack Blockhead said.

“Today the new rule clearly penalized the better team. It tears at the heart and soul of true fair-and-square American athletic competition.”

 

Hyena U. coach Gary Grifter was, predictably, delighted with the result, and called Blockhead

“a crybaby, a sore loser and a scaredy cat, and I understand he likes Cuban music and Chinese food, which tells you all you need to know about his character and credibility.” And, he added,

“his mother wears combat boots.”

 

Years of social media & reality TV lobbying for the new rule claimed the old way of accumulated scoring determining the winning team un-American because it denied quarters their individual rights and reduced many to marginal status solely because they frequently weren’t as populated by points.

 

Opponents of the rule change had said those arguments made no sense but became increasingly unable to articulate why, and eventually were reduced to maniacal screaming, exaggerated eye rolling, uncontrollable sobbing and writing letters to The New York Times.

 

Despite being declared the winner, an incensed Grifter insisted “the refs’ blatantly blown calls accounted for all the cheating Jacksasses’ points, ruining what would have been a sensational shutout, which a lot of people are saying it really was anyway.”

 

Countered the Jackass’ Blockhead: “Help! I’m being attacked by a sore winner!” 

 

Grifter went on to call the result under the new rule “the greatest victory in football history. No, in all sports history. Ok, in all history, period, which covers a lot of time, I’ve been told. All right, I pronounce it the greatest victory of all time. That’s more than history. That includes prehistoric, too. What, the dinosaurs are going to argue with me?”

 

When confronted with allegations  that he or his assistants had conferred with members of the NFL champion New England Patriots for the purpose of stealing signals, deflating footballs, paying off officials or soliciting  prostitutes, Grifter said: “Winning’s for winners. Losing’s for losers.”

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Robert Eugene Rubino has published poetry and prose in The Esthetic Apostle, Cagibi, The Write Launch, Hippocampus and Elysian Fields Quarterly. For more than thirty years he was a daily copy editor and weekly columnist at various California newspapers. He's old enough to have seen Willie Mays play centerfield at the Polo Grounds and smart enough to nail the New York Times crossword puzzle each Monday (other days not so much). He lives in Palo Alto, California.

Issue IX