RING

 RING

 RING-A-DA-DING DING DINGY DONNNG

Hello, this is Iowa State athletic director Jamie Pollard. It's a great day to be a Cyclone!

(snicker)

 Hello?

 Oh, (clears throat), sorry, I had to sneeze. This is Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany.

 Oh, well it's great to hear from you, Mr. Delany.

 Please, please! Call me Jim.

 Well, sure thing, Jim! What can I do for you?

 Well, as you probably know, we're looking for some new blood in the Big Ten. It's not a lot of fun running a conference with 11 teams and no championship game, you know what I mean?

 Yessir, good thing the Big XII has a good structure in place for that!

 Well, about that, Jamie. Can I call you Jamie?

 Mr. Pollard, preferably, Jamie's kind of a girl na

 Jamie it is. So Jamie, we were looking at our figures, and reports, and uh, and our maps... and... well, we think Iowa State would be a perfect fit for the Big 10.

 Do you really?

 Well, sure! Shame that you've got the Big XII already eating out of the palm of your hand and all, though. I suppose we could never convince you to leave that situation for us...

 No, we'd be happy to--I mean, we could start some negotiations and just listen.

 Excellent. Well, first things first, just for our records, let's get a form started. You at your computer, Jamie?

 I sure am!

 (closes Internet Explorer window of Cyclone Fanatic)

 Okay, great. We'll get your team's file all set up. We need you to email me, your president, and the ADs of all the Big Ten members. I assume you've got your directory handy for all of those.

 I sure do!

 Perfect. So let's get started. There's a weird filing system we do here, so you have to enter the subject in carefully, but you only need to do this once. I don't know why we do this, but IT swears it can't be done any other way.

 Boy, tell me about it! Sometimes I think, "if this is the Information Superhighway, I want to just pull over!!"

 Yes, um, the Information Superhighway. Wow. Anyway, all capital letters here, no spaces unless I tell you. First, we start with ISU, that's you guys.

 ISU

 Then C, for conference.

 ISUC

 Then K, then 2 underscores

 ISUCK__

 Then the number eight, equals, equals, equals, and a D

 Wait, three equals signs in a row?

 Yeah, good catch.

 It's four.

 ISUCK__8====D

 Okay, almost done, then a space, open a parenthesis, type O-dash-8, then close the parenthesis.

 ISUCK__8====D (O-8)

 Stands for Operation Eight, since this is our eighth study of expansion in the conference's history. And we're all set.

 Oh, so that's why 8 is in there twice.

 Um... yes it is!

 So just put your contact info in the message body and fire that off to everyone right now, and what that does is open an active email server vector.

 All done! Sent!

 Holy crap, wow, um... yes, you actually did send that. Yeah, you should be getting plenty of responses pretty quick on that one. Anyway, let's talk Iowa State sports. Mind if we do that?

 Sure thing!

 Okay, says here you were in the Final Four once.

 Um...

 Yeah, back in 1980. That's still a plus. Oh, also, our research tells us that you've got the number one wrestling team in the nation! That Brent Metcalf sure is a great wrestler for you guys!

 Yeah, we uh...

 Oh, and you won a bowl game this year.

 We sure did!

 You beat Georgia Tech!

 Okay, uh, if I can just interrupt for a second... all of that stuff you just mentioned, um, Iowa State didn't do any of those.

 No? Who, pray tell, was it?

 Well, you're off by about 120 miles, but that was actually Iowa.

 Come again?

 Iowa did all that.

 YOU GOD DAMN RIGHT THAT WAS IOWA WHOOOOOOOOOOOO GO HAWKEYES EAT A BOWL OF HERKY DICK BEEEYATCH FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FOR IOOO

 (hangs up the phone)

Who was that? Did I hear you say something about the Big Ten?

 No, Secretary, it was nobody. Wrong number.

 Okay. Oh, president Geoffroy is on line two, and he doesn't seem very happy. Something about an explicit email?

 Great, I'll bet we have another child pornographer coaching basketball.

 Hey, has the Missouri Valley called back yet?

 No, do you want me to leave another message?

 No, six is probably fine. I'm sure they're just on vacation or something.

(Meanwhile, in an office about 120 miles away)

I cannot. fucking. believe he bought that. With the boner thing? Check this out, he actually sent it to everyone.

 (tosses Blackberry)

 No way he... I'll be damned.

 Guy's like Brick Tamland. Who should we call next?

 I dunno, Gary, maybe one's enough.

  (checks watch)

  ...let's do Illinois.

 Attaboy!

 And make sure Delany's totally mystified that they're already in the conference. You know what I mean? Like that he didn't just forget, he legitimately had no idea they were ever there.

 "The Big 10? The one with the real schools? Are you sure?"

 "Boy, I would have missed that one on Jeopardy! I figured you were in the Horizon or something!" That's good stuff. Oh, hey--before you call, can I get another beer?

 Absolutely.

Man, offseasons are awesome.