Last week, President of Vassar College Elizabeth Bradley announced the inclusion of a new sport offered at Vassar College: cockfighting. The scrappy team, made up of bloodthirsty roosters and student handlers will now be able to compete against other Division III cockfighting teams, such as Brandeis University, Mount Holyoke College and SUNY New Paltz. The team has been awarded $5,000 by the Office of Athletics & Physical Education.
Richard Rossi, the visibly scarred team captain, had this to say about how the budget would be managed: “Well, of course this is a really big deal. We’ve been trying to get varsity status since this team started and we want to make sure our money is well spent. We are a serious organization, now officially part of a serious school, so we want to get some very serious kits for our roosters. We aren’t really sure of the numbers right now, but we hope to invest in some new razor blades and maybe some new chickens. Part of this… well, a big part of this is that the roosters keep dying. So, of course they’re gonna be a big part of the budget. We thought about team uniforms but considering… well… they are all going to die pretty soon, so we decided to circle back next quarter.”
In addition to Rossi, we were able to interview handler Maria Sable. When questioned about the future of the team, she had this to say: “Our best hope is that we can make the semifinals. We’ve just entered the big leagues and we really want to stand out from the rest of the schools. It’s been a rocky road, competing in local Poughkeepsie cockpits and seeing our roosters get killed time and again. I do think we have a strong—very strong—team this year. They are fierce little monsters, and I think other schools are really gonna fear us.”
Sable introduced me to the 10-rooster roster. The first all-star and avian captain of the team was a large white leghorn breed missing a wing and half of his beak.
“This little rascal here is named Gutter,” exclaimed Sable. “Oh, boy, he’s a real team player. He just gets in that ring and kills and kills ’til he gets way too tired of killin’ and just starts ripping. Then we have to bench him. But he’s our real star. He’s the reason people really know about the team.”
The second-in-command was known as Ol’ Smokey, a gray Plymouth Rock breed whose main tactic was pecking out the eyes of his opponents. After that, I met the new “wildcard” member Bitch ’N’ a Half, who was known to shred anyone who dared touch him.
“I sure have gotten some marks from Bitch ’N’ a Half!” Sable chuckled, rubbing her bandaged arms. “He’s a real feisty sumbitch.” Coincidentally enough, the next rooster was a large, jet black Australorp named Sumbitch, a transfer chicken from the University at Albany who was revered as a brutal fighter in the pit.
“He’s our secret weapon this semester,” Sable whispered to me as we left the hennery. “Don’t tell Gutter, but half our budget’s going to Sumbitch. Those a-holes at Brandeis won’t know what hit ’em!”
I next met with operations manager Harold Kain, a 46-year-old third-party contractor with a history of managing cockfighting rings in Bolivia and Chechnya. He was the only team member I had met so far who was not brutally scarred or missing flesh from his nose.
“Let’s get things straight, see. This is a difficult thing to organize,” Kain said. “You need interested parties, you need money, you need chickens and, of course, you need there to be some blood! And all of this can’t happen without a cockpit. Now, don’t, don’t think this is some sort of airplane I’m talking about, not like some cockpit in some airplane, but a real live cockpit, where the chickens go at it. Where they kill. And for this, well, I hate to boast, y’know, but I think I scored us a pretty good deal.”
He described the new cockpit, a large ramshackle ring which will now occupy the northern half of Walker Field House: “Y’see, it’s gotta be cheap. Because our budget’s shot. And it’s gotta be authentic. People going to this want to feel like they’re going to something real. That’s what the big jackasses at the DI schools do, is they build some big, modernesque pit. No, no, I just won’t have it. It’s about the experience, damn it. You don’t go to Disney World and, and not see Goofy walking about. You gotta feel like you’re actually there, with Goofy. You gotta feel like you’re in the ring, watching a good old fashioned cockfight. If anything, we might not be good, but if anything, we are gonna be the most goddamn authentic Division III cockfighting ring in New York State, maybe even in the tristate area. Nobody’s gonna have a better show than us.”
Unfortunately, the cockfighting ring has proved controversial, most likely due to the various ethical concerns surrounding having chickens fight each other to the death. The women’s track and field team voiced their concerns on Instagram last weekend, stating: “If we have a ring in the middle of Walker Field House, one of the largest buildings on campus, it’s really going to cut our running track in two. It’s an obscenely large wooden pit which has now taken precedence over us. We can list multiple locations where a large ‘cockpit’ could be built that didn’t have to affect how our team works. This has really dampened our spirits.”
Despite controversy, many students have expressed interest in watching cockfighting. Polling suggests that nearly 60 percent of students plan to attend, and 40 percent plan to place bets. The team is currently hiring for the work study positions of “Euthanizer,” “Social Media Manager” and “Breeder.” The future of the team is hazy, but we at The Miscellany News hope to see our cocks rise up against other schools.