Town/gown

Author: Grady Ross

Several years ago, my family decided to take a guided tour at a zoo we were visiting. Everything was going quite well: we rode the little trolley from cage to cage oohing and ahhing at the crocodiles and monkeys and giraffes. Then we got to the panther.

"We call these panthers," informed our guide, "but there are really no such things. They are simply black leopards."

At this point my grandfather, a Midd man from way back, whispered:

"She has no idea what she's talking about. She must have gone to Dartmouth."

Growing up attending football, hockey and soccer games at the College and cheering at Winter Carnival up at the Snow Bowl, I've always understood that panthers were sacred animals. And although I've been in Middlebury all my life, this knowledge has separated me from campus: I've always been a spectator, never an actual part of the Panther tradition.

Prepare yourselves for that last epic scene of a sports movie,