Editor’s note: The contents of this column are intended for satirical and entertainment purposes and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the IDS or its staffers. The people and scenarios mentioned are fictional.
Indiana University students attending football coach Curt Cignetti’s talk at the IU Auditorium on Tuesday were shocked, to say the least, when he had still not said a word after 10 minutes of sitting on stage.
“I thought he was supposed to say something,” Dylan Kirkwood, a junior majoring in sports marketing and a self-professed game towel hoarder, said. “But he just sat there instead. After a few minutes, he put up his feet, and they rolled out a TV for him.”
Several minutes into his scheduled talk, Cignetti shifted his chair away from the audience. Several auditorium stagehands wheeled a portable screen onto the stage. Then, Cignetti plucked a remote from his shirt pocket and turned on film from IU’s foregoing season.
According to students who attended the talk, Cignetti flipped through Indiana State, Illinois and Iowa game footage before landing on November’s Penn State game. For 20 minutes, they watched the coach pause, slow down and zoom in on wide receiver Charlie Becker’s footwork.
“Five minutes of Becker’s two-step, and I couldn’t take it anymore,” Holly Woodlawn said.
Woodlawn said her eyelids felt increasingly heavy until a rogue grumble startled her.
“That’s pretty darn good,” Cignetti reportedly mumbled through a mild grin as he leaned to the interviewer seated beside him. Cignetti had paused on wide receiver Omar Cooper Jr.’s toe-tap catch before fast-forwarding to study kicker Nico Radicic’s sideline practice.
Half an hour into the hour-long talk, an intern ambled down the auditorium’s central walkway toting a Chipotle bag. He climbed on stage and handed the parcel to Cignetti. Cignetti nodded, then opened it as the intern exited the same way.
“He sat there, silently munching on his brown rice,” attendee Jimmy Arboretum said. “He was probably staring at a still screen of Penn State’s defense for the whole time he ate.”
Around this time, Arboretum said Hoosier the Bison, who was brought in as a sign language interpreter for Cignetti’s talk, shrugged his shoulders and stepped off stage.
“I asked Hoosier why, and he just fist-bumped and pointed at me,” Arboretum said.
By minute 45 of Cignetti’s talk, most students in the auditorium had fallen asleep.
Senior Elaine Willkie, the Union Board director chosen to interview Cignetti, described the experience as “awkward.”
“I tried to make eye contact with Coach Cignetti after six or seven minutes,” Willkie said. “And I tried to ask my first question, but I had never seen anyone stare at a screen so intensely before. It seemed like he was seeing things I couldn’t even conceive of.”
When the talk concluded, Willkie stood up and thanked both Cignetti and the audience for coming.
After the audience left, Willkie said she saw the dim glow of Cignetti’s film screen still playing as auditorium crewmembers turned off the lights and lowered the curtain.
Eric Cannon (he/him) is a sophomore studying philosophy and political science and currently serves as a member of IU Student Government.
