Stanford's crazy tree, UNC student dumped in public

By Eric Horowitz

Kansas State faces the wrath of PETA, over a thousand UNC student gather to watch a hoax, gambling may become the key to education in Missouri, and BYU bans YouTube. All this and more in this week's Campus Chronicles.

If you see a Stanford student streaking naked through campus or being pelted by paintball bullets, don't worry -- it's just another mascot wannabe. Robert Beck/SI

• The toughest thing in all of college athletics isn't guarding Kevin Durant, it's getting chosen as the new Stanford Tree. This week students hoping to become the new Tree attempted to drum up support for themselves by performing stunts across campus. The festivities began on Thursday when a Tree hopeful was duct taped to a giant target and shot with a paintball gun by the current Tree and members of the Stanford band. That was followed by another Tree candidate who chopped up a papier-mâché golden bear with an axe in the middle of a campus plaza, then removed all his clothes and ran away naked. On Monday a third candidate allowed three men in costume to burn him with dry ice while he was giving a speech about the Tree. The Tree's storied history includes a February 2006 incident where the student playing the tree was suspended for being drunk at the Stanford-Cal basketball game, and another incident just one month later where the new Tree was ejected from the Stanford women's NCAA tournament game for dancing in an undesignated area. The candidates have until Thursday to prove that they are unruly enough to be chosen as the new Tree.

• One of the Big 12's wildest and wackiest traditions may soon be coming to an end. The Kansas State tradition of throwing live chickens onto the court before tip-off against Kansas has drawn the ire of PETA, and the animal rights organization has asked the school to put an end to it. While I certainly don't condone the behavior of the Kansas State fans, I think it's interesting/hilarious that PETA seems more upset about the chickens being subjected "to the loud and boisterous atmosphere of a sporting event", than the potentially fatal act of being thrown onto the court. Nevertheless, if Kansas State fans want a more humane way to taunt Kansas, they should decide to throw one chicken for every title in the last 15 years.

• It turns out that the University of North Carolina's infamous "breakup in the pit" was a hoax after all. The incident began when a UNC student announced through the Facebook that he would break up with his cheating girlfriend in the middle of campus. Over 1,300 people showed up to watch the spectacle, and the video of the breakup became internet sensation when, after a week of speculation about whether the breakup was real, the student who started it all came clean and admitted that it was a staged experiment which showed the power of internet communities. The experiment also has the unintended result of proving that UNC students have too much time on their hands.

• Students in the state of Missouri may soon have to rely on degenerate gamblers to get a college education. A bill is under consideration that would lift the maximum loss limit at Missouri casinos and put the newly generated revenue into a scholarship fund for students. According to a spokesman for Ameristar Casinos, "it's a win-win" for students and casinos--unless of course the students step foot inside the casinos, in which case it's a lose-lose-lose.