In 2025, Ava Harvey, then a senior at Oberlin College, decided to write about the football team. The Yeomen had finished 1–9 each of the previous two seasons; when she started working on her column, the team was already 0–4, almost halfway to its eventual record of 0–10. But she believed that the school and its students should support the team more. She argued that “the majority of students are, at best, indifferent—if not outright hostile—to the sport” and noted that “the “homogenized coastal culture historically propagated by the school”—despite Oberlin’s campus being in northern Ohio—“alienates Midwest athletes seeking a sense of home.” After the article ran, something weird happened: people at Oberlin began talking about the team. Jesse Dougherty writes about how an op-ed in support of football divided a liberal-arts campus: newyorkermag.visitlink.me/Uf…