The Saga of St. Remedius’s Only Foray Into College Sports
(Who was St. Remedius? And why is a medical college named after him?)
A much-accepted aspect of student life at St. Remedius Medical College was the near-total lack of collegiate sports teams. In any ranking of “America’s Best Party Colleges,” St. Remedius ranked at the absolute bottom, alongside Caltech, MIT, Brigham Young, and the Pablo Cortez Art Academy in Phoenix, Arizona instead of with other Texas colleges. Indeed, its complete disdain for college sports programs among students and faculty helps explain its relative obscurity even among colleges in the greater Dallas/Fort Worth area, as a lack of worship of the One True God Fuh-Boh made it irrelevant and invisible to so many in North Texas. While other colleges’ students and alumni were busy getting blackout drunk at the Red River Showdown game after filling the streets of downtown Dallas with beer vomit the night before, St. Remedius students were too busy prepping for the next I-20 Road Rage or Time Traveler Ball. After all, they had their priorities.
Not that St. Remedius didn’t have a football team: not only was that blasphemy to the upright opponents of idolatry in Texas, but having a team also allowed the school to collect state funds promoting the official religion. (Unbeknownst to state government, these funds were promptly rolled into scholarship programs, particularly in the Music department: waste not, want not.) The team wasn’t registered with the Big 12 Conference, it had no massive television presence, and almost all of its official merchandise was homemade and sold by independent vendors outside of its games. This refers, of course, to the St. Remedius Hodags, the most famous women’s football team in Texas.
The Hodags gained most of their fame not just from the lineup but from their challenges. As far as the NCAA was concerned, every game played against St. Remedius had no effect on team rankings and was unofficial when involving school and player records. Secondly, playing against St. Remedius was not limited to other women’s teams, and St. Remedius found itself going up against the rest of the Big 12 as a matter of course. Every ‘roided-up high school halfback in the state dreamed of being the one who finally broke the St. Remedius defensive line, especially after the pre-game challenges, borrowing from the traditional Maori haka, both terrorized and infuriated the Hodags’ opponents. Once those halfbacks joined a college team and attempted to reach the St. Remedius end zone in their first game, they usually found themselves stomped into the turf within minutes by some of the toughest and most determined women in college sports anywhere on the planet, and most games ended early as opposing players broke ranks and escaped the field, leaving naught but the scent of fear and urine. And yet the teams kept coming, coaches absolutely certain that this was their year to beat a gaggle of girls at a true man’s sport.
Naturally, after a first season of humiliation, said coaches assumed that chicanery had to be involved, because that’s what THEY would do. St. Remedius responded with detailed breakdowns on its players, with independent testing for performance-enhancing drugs and technologies, full videos of the training regimen, and verification that performance was based solely on physical skill without any technological, thaumaturgical, or psionic augmentation of any sort. Several opposing coaches then demanded DNA testing, alleging that the Hodags were recruiting ringers from the Denisovian Embassy and therefore weren’t modern humans. This immediately came back to bite most of the Big Twelve, as a significant number of their best players were at least partially Outer God: as one wag noted, “If not for incest, inbreeding, and unspeakable unions with nameless abominations from beyond space-time, SMU’s legacies would lose all their character.” And yet the teams kept coming, determined that one day, they would WIN.
Complicating matters even further was that a condition of each game was a complete blackout on all transmissions and recordings, with the only reportage coming from St. Remedius Radio. Anyone attempting to broadcast via standard electromagnetic spectra found a powerful shell blocking any transmissions or fiber optic feeds; video recordings turned into reruns of Uncle Bill’s Seriously Messed-Up Universe when replayed, and scrying windows only gave a closeup of a particular alien demon known only as “Goatse.” After the game, all anyone had were their memories, and even those were impossible to transcribe, translate, engrammate, or impress upon other media of any sort.
With the disappearance of St. Remedius, the Hodags disbanded, but available former team members gather for occasional reunions. Not surprisingly, their daughters usually excel at grade school, middle school, and high school sports to a frightening degree, but never to the detriment of their studies.
Want to get caught up on the St. Remedius story so far? Check out the main archive. Want more hints as to the history of St. Remedius Medical College? Check out Backstories and Fragments. Want to forget all of that and look at cat pictures from a beast who dreams of his own OnlyFans for his birthday? Check out Mandatory Parker. Questions, concerns, and disgust over generative AI? Check out Contact, Privacy Policy, and AI Policy. And feel free to visit the St. Remedius Medical College Redbubble shop for all of your Mandatory Parker needs.
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