Number Zero: Tris Wykes

Bet you fuckers thought that we were done with the countdown. Think again. We’re coming back with number zero on our list of People of the Year for 2010.

Technically, Tris Wykes’s major claim to fame at Dartmouth happened at the end of 2009, but we’re willing to overlook that, since we didn’t do a People of the Year last year.

Tris Wykes, in case you forgot, is the Valley News reporter who broke the story about anti-Semitism at a squash match against Harvard where students yelled things like “bagel”.

I’m going to abandon The Dunyun’s traditional satirical style for this article on Tris Wykes. I can’t even bring myself to say anything nice about him sarcastically.

 You, Mr. Wykes, are everything that is wrong with the world today.

You quoted the mother of a Harvard player and implied that the cheers of “bagel” coming from the crowd were anti-Semitic in nature. If you had cared to take five seconds to Google “bagel squash”, you would have realized that that’s the term for beating somebody without allowing them to take any points. You really think that we couldn’t have come up with better anti-Semitic heckles than bagel if we were really trying? Really, you give us that little credit as hecklers? If we wanted to make anti-Semitic comments, we’d call them hook-nosed or money-grubbing. But we’re not going to do that, since we’re above it. Why would we make fun of somebody for liking bagels? Bagels are fucking delicious. That’s a compliment.

If we wanted to make fun of him for being Jewish, when he won the last point, we would’ve said that he “Madoff” (read: made off) with the last point.

Yelling “bagel” at a squash match is like yelling “hat trick” at a hockey game. I don’t give a shit if the goalie’s bald. It’s not about you.

Or like yelling “broken ankles” at a basketball game, when we don’t realize that the guy’s grandma just fell down the stairs and broke her ankles. Who gives a shit if he starts crying?

Or like yelling “ace” at a tennis match when the guy had testicular cancer and only has one ball. Not my problem.

Or like yelling “triple” at a baseball game when the pitcher’s wife just got triple-teamed by some guys she met on Craigslist. Whoops.

Or like yelling “safety” at a football game after the center farts. Totally, and it smells like fart. 

You get the idea.

When we (the royal we) got in touch with you to complain about your article, you defended yourself by saying that you’re not just some small-town reporter. You’re a former LA Times reporter. Pretty big deal, right?

You were the beat reporter for high school girls basketball. We checked. Bluff called.

Also, really? You think that a bunch of college students getting drunk and yelling at a sporting event is newsworthy? What else is there, really? That’s all that college students do. 1) get drunk. 2) watch sporting events. 3) yell inappropriate things. And we did all three at the same time, which is what most people call “a good time”. Instead, you decided to blow up our spot. Fuck off, man.