LADIES LOVE OBSCURE RIVALRIES: INDIANA UNIVERSITY EDITION: The Cutters vs. The College Kids

by Dan Raspatello, draspatello@rivalfish.com

Post Super Bowl through March 1^st is the most boring time of the year in the sporting world. Football is over, only pitchers have to report to spring training for baseball, the effortless NBA is in the miserably boring mid-season, college basketball is still weeks away from The Tourney, and the NHL… well I guess it doesn’t matter what time of the year it is for the NHL. Instead of trying to put together some lackluster sports article, I decided to address the age-old rivalry that the Oscar winning Breaking Away made popular 25 some odd years ago; the locals vs the Indiana University students, aka The Cutters vs The College Kids.

A "Cutter" is a local from the area surrounding Indiana University (Bloomington, Bedford, Martinsville, and a few other towns that beat-off to pictures of Ford F-150s). The name arose because the area surrounding IU is rich in limestone, and a lot of the men were hired to “cut” the limestone so it could be used to build buildings during and after WWII. Now the name has evolved to instead mean "local hillbilly who hates college kids." Sort of like the name "Hoosier" evolving from a word referring to a railroad worker to one that simply implies a resident of Indiana.

I visited Indiana University the other weekend (my alma mater), and realized three things after being removed from this little piece of heaven for almost 9 months now.

1.) Girls at Indiana University are a lot better looking than girls in the real world,

2.) I am getting old and it sucks, and

3.) Cutters are the worst people in the world.

I walked into a popular bar at IU, Nick’s, to play one of the few drinking games that is truly rich in tradition, “Sink the Biz.” On my way in, my buddy Jordan informed me that over the past school year Nick’s had begun to be overtaken by Cutters. This worked kind of like when black people moved into white neighborhoods in the ‘60’s. A few move in and everyone freaks out and moves to the next bar/town over.

Anyway, I was standing at the bar waiting to order a pitcher when some drunk douche with a gross blond-mixed-with-poo mustache and sideburns that were patchier than a hippie's favorite pair of pants tapped me on the shoulder. He was curious as to why, “I keeps looking overs at his buddy and his buddy’s girl.” I looked behind me and saw a group of five Cutters and one girl that wanted to beat me up worse than if I were a gay black guy who believes in global warming. I turn back to the Cutter who tapped me on the shoulder and gave him a look that said “are you actually retarded?” He walked back to his group of NASCAR aficionados (no, Cutter, that word isn’t Spanish), and for the next hour they kept cracking their knuckles and telling each other how they were going to beat my ass. They never actually came up to me and did anything to my “city boy” ass, as they eventually got sidetracked thinking about dirt-bikes and hunting squirrels.

How to recognize a group of “Cutters”:
So now you may be asking, “hey, Dan, how do we know if we around a group of Cutters?” Well, it is pretty simple. The group will consist of 3 or more guys and only 1 girl, and this girl will be dating one of the Cutters in the group. It will be easy to know which Cutter is dating the girl because he will be touching her 100% of the time. Whether it is their truck, gun, or girl, Cutters are very possessive. (On a side note, Cutters refer to every automobile that is bigger than your average sedan as a truck, so if you have a SVU, mini-van or station wagon, you really have a “truck.”) A female Cutter will usually have bushy bangs with a perm that went out of style in ’95, and tight stone-washed, ankle-grabbing jeans. A male Cutter will usually be sporting a t-shirt that represents his favorite driver (anyone from a NASCAR star to a dirt-biking amateur,) short hair with bangs gelled down onto his forehead, and facial hair that only Mark Buhrle, Billy-Bob Thornton, or someone with a mullet would rock.

Becoming a "cool" Cutter:
Things you have to hate: Minorities, facts that don’t come from the Bible, homosexuals, college students, abortion, shaving, formal clothing, The Union, and Jeff Gordon

Things you have to love: Auto racing, sideburns, outdated clothes (i.e. Starter jackets), denim, hitting your girlfriend/wife, pick-up trucks, The Confederacy, getting married in high school, dipping, hunting/guns, chain sit-down restaurants (i.e. Applebee’s, Chili’s, Ruby Tuesday,) loitering, country music, and a tattoo of your ex-girlfriend’s name.

Ideal job after high school:
Once a Cutter realizes that he isn’t going to be playing basketball anymore and that he can’t afford his own race car, he has to find the next best thing. And the next best thing is becoming part of the Indiana University Police Department (tied for second place is Bloomington Police Officer or Monroe County Police Officer.) This allows the Cutter to legally torment college kids. This dream job can only be correlated with a homosexual man getting the chance to work for the E! Network, or an East Coast Jewish girl marrying a rich lawyer, doctor, or business man right out of college… wait, that one already happens all the time.

For those of you who did not go to Indiana University you might not know that they hand out underage drinking tickets like Southern Illinois University hands out STDs or Miami of Ohio hands out clothing from J. Crew. If you drink and attend Indiana University under the age of 21 you will get a drinking ticket. The IUPD (Indiana University Police Department) will stop you while walking on the street and breathalyzing you without provocation. If you are underage and in any way intoxicated, you are getting a $350 ticket.

This job allows a Cutter to torture college kids, drive fast, act important, and be a hard ass. If we're going to let guys like that have such well-suited jobs, we might as well allow convicted pedophiles to relocate to Thailand or Vietnam.

*I would like to apologize to all Cutters for not mentioning Professional Wrestling (i.e. WWF or WWE) in this article. I know you guys equally love it, and, yes, I know it’s real.