The Cortaca Jug is known as the “biggest little game in the nation.” However, we Bombers know it as a weekend known for arrests, hospitalizations and drunken shenanigans.
But is the Cortaca Jug really all it’s talked up to be?
Last year, for my freshman Cortaca weekend, the game was at Ithaca. I got all of my best friends from nearby colleges to come join the festivities. “It’s the CRAZIEST weekend for Ithaca AND Cortland. It’s going to be INSANE,” I gushed. My roommate and I crammed seven people into our miniature dorm room on Friday night, and we all woke up early on Saturday, ready to “get our Cortaca on.”
Upon our arrival at the game, I quickly realized that, it was a lot bigger than most other IC football games. That, unfortunately, isn’t saying much. The normal crowd is satisfactory but far from impressive, and often leaves by halftime. The Cortaca crowd was big, but nothing to get too hyped up about; my friends and I wandered away for lunch sometime in the second half largely because of the anticlimactic atmosphere of it all, and of course, the fact that we were losing 27-3.
For my sophomore year, I traveled to the Cortland field to cheer at the game with the Ithaca College cheerleading team. Days before the game, we got warnings about how crazy the Cortland crowd gets; there would be security guards everywhere who would escort us to and from the field, we weren’t allowed to be separated from the team at any time, we weren’t allowed to talk to or acknowledge any of the fans, etc. There were rumors about past years when the cheerleaders had to stop cheering because things were being thrown at them from the stands.
We all took these precautions and warnings seriously. Cortaca is supposed to be the biggest weekend normal”>ever, so it was perfectly plausible that these things would happen at the Cortland stadium.
I woke up early that day excited to experience Cortaca at its finest. I was convinced that because the game was at Cortland this year — a bigger school with a rowdier crowd — it would be completely different.
However, we weren’t escorted anywhere by security guards, because there was no real need to be. Our fans were a little annoying and intoxicated, but nothing to worry about, and the Cortland fans came nowhere near us. If anything, we received more slurred comments about being cheerleaders than about being from Ithaca, and even those were tame.
Ithaca fared much better during this year’s game, and put up a good fight. The crowd was amped up to the very last minute of the game, when the IC team had about 50 seconds to cross the goal line for the win with just one yard to go. Unfortunately, they were unable to pull it off, and we lost to Cortland again.
I, like any other college student who attends a school with a traditional rivalry, love the excitement building up to this infamous weekend. When it’s a close and exciting game, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere but in the stands or on the sidelines cheering on the Bombers. But I can’t help but step back and think about whether Cortaca deserves all the excitement.
I have only attended two Cortaca games, so I can’t claim to be an expert, but maybe we should give up the title of the “biggest little game in the nation.” After all, there are plenty of “big little” games out there.