Competitive podcasting to give unathletic students a chance to compete

By Mo-Cheal Barbaro, Host of Newswire’s The Gayyly

The latest sports trend to sweep the nation by storm has not missed Xavier. As of Spring 2021, Intramural Sports has announced that they will be unveiling a competitive podcasting team which will allow students to participate in socially-distant teams. 

The new teams have drawn a different crowd than typical intramural activities. Instead of exercise science and business majors, English and philosophy majors are signing up in droves. 

“I just really think this is what cura personalis is all about,” sophomore gender and diversity studies major Aeva Twatts said. “We’re exercising our minds, which is far more important than exercising our bodies.” 

Rivalries are heating up in the preseason as podcasting teams have begun revealing their talking topics. 

“We’re really focusing on time this semester,” sophomore English and philosophy major Karly Kstalder said of his metaphysical podcast with roommate Gil Grippey. 

“Which has nothing to do with the fact that we’re taking a philosophy class about that exact subject now. We’re just really into time on our own,” he said. 

Four other students from the same philosophy class have also announced that they, too, will be sharing their thoughts on time via podcast. 

Newswire also announced that they would be doing a podcast on hard-hitting news within the campus community. 

However, the Newswire podcast was quickly overtaken by the XU Barstool podcast, which promised the “hottiest and thott-iest (sic)” news within the campus community. Which is fine. 

Newswire copy editors reached out to XU Barstool for comments, and to correct them on their grammar, but received only a series of confusing memes in response. 

It’s unclear how student podcasting teams will be bracketed for tournaments or even scored based on their performance. 

“The entire thing seems untenable,” history teaching professor Mark Cuck said. “I’ve had an academic podcast for three years, and my wife doesn’t even listen to it. How are college students supposed to get anyone to listen to their dumb thoughts?”

Cuck added, “also, have you ever met a college student who does a podcast? They do it for like, six episodes and then get super bored. They do not have the patience for this type of endurance sport,” 

However, participating students held a notably more optimistic view. 

“I’m so excited to just share my thoughts with the world,” senior Philosophy, Politics and the Public major Aaron White said. 

When pressed on what thoughts actually were, White pretended to get a phone call and walked away. 

“This is a really valuable opportunity for Xavier to participate in something bigger than itself,” first-year exploratory major Kara Longhorn said. 

“I think that this is a great way for us to find out which of our classmates are radical conservatives and formerly-closeted white supremacists,” she continued.

The administration hasn’t released a formal comment on the new intramural programming, but when cornered and asked for comments, Father Graham sighed angrily. 

“Sure, I’ll listen to them. That wouldn’t be an enormous waste of my time, and also crazy boring,” the president said while flipping on Ray Bans and driving off to Soundgarden’s “Spoonman” in his Maserati.