By Alyssa Johnson, sophomore English major from Claude.

Someone once said “All’s fair in love and war.” For many, football is a passion deeper than many other loves, and to the casual observer, its semblance to war is uncanny. However, any time one team ends the game with 78 more points than the other seems to me rather unfair.

One of the many virtues we claim to exemplify at our university is mercy (i.e. “I desire mercy, not sacrifice”¦” Hosea 6:6, “Act justly, love mercy, walk humbly”¦” Micah 6:8, etc.), and I was rather disheartened to see that our team, a Christian team, was practically punishing these strangers.

I understand that football is a violent sport, but I have yet to understand why our team insisted on racking up the score. Some might argue that football is merely a sport, that any actions on the field are irrelevant to the Christian lifestyle we profess. Yet I wonder how an event that can take up so much time of the players, coaches, and fans cannot affect not only the off-the-field lives of students but also the perceptions of other universities and sports fans. Should we not strive to act as examples for the world? How then can we justify such a brutal “victory” when we had clearly won by the end of the first half?

I intend to remain a Wildcat fan, but I hope to see an increase of mercy (and hopefully more pleasant football games to watch) in the future. Please, no more blowouts. Not like this.

Perhaps then I won’t see such irony in the phrase “Purple and white, fight fight fight.”