Freshmen Air-Bud is not your ordinary student-athlete. At four years old, Bud has already humped the NESCAC spotlight into submission with his dominant practices on the Varsity Basketball team and off-the-court antics that have coaches and the administration reeling. As many students and staff speculate Air-bud’s ability to juggle a four course workload and team practices, one thing remains certain – Middlebury Basketball needs a best friend.
Air Bud’s highly sought after collegiate career began with a tough decision over where the future star would find his new home. Months of deliberation and speculation concluded with Bud revealing in a late August interview with Animal Planet that he would be attending Middlebury College as a member of the Class of 2014. “The decision was tough, but in the end the open fields to roam in and the constant smell of cow shit won him over” his owner writes in an e-mail to the college.
The decision was a tough indeed. A bag of poisonous dog food from China was rumored to have been delivered to his home address several days after the interview, along with racy pictures of Bud’s mother with an uncollared Mexican pit-bull dated from 2004. Investigators believe the items may have been sent from a disgruntled member of the Cleveland Polytechnic Institute’s basketball squad, a close second in Bud’s decision. No definitive leads have been pursued though and the case is still open.
The 2’1” small forward is a creature of simple pleasures – the occasional walk to the park and Nutrigena Lamb and Rice formula at meal times keeps him dedicated and faithful to his team. Air-bud’s transition to Div III basketball was like every other Middlebury Basketball’s players’, three consecutive seasons as MVP of a generic New England Town’s high school basketball team prepared Bud enough for an intensely competitive high school-like atmosphere with a very fair-weather fan base. Last practice’s scrimmage ended with a nose-bumped game winning three pointer over center Andrew Locke, and with the exception of the rabies scare that turned out to be a practical joke, things on the court are generally looking in the upwards direction for the Panther squad.
But all is not well for the campus’ own domesticated teen- wolf. The Middlebury ethics committee is currently reviewing the enrollment status of the freshmen scholar-athlete Air-bud over a spate of charges ranging from public defecation to sexual assault of four female students at a recent party at ADP. The allegations are serious, and as it is his 3rd time in front of the panel, many are concerned it could be his last. A spoiled interview with Sports Illustrated also landed him out of in the spotlight when Bud was continually disruptive during one on one time with the reporter and urinated on the photographer. As many sense an almost guaranteed NCAA bid on its way with Bud on the starting line, it is no wonder the coach has been doubling as a defense attorney for the capable canine, “I just don’t know what all the fuss is about, throw a dog a bone here.”