Revenge of the Nerds: Caltech Wins!
Caltech. The California Institute of Technology. Home of the Jet Propulsion Lab, ground zero for the study of seismology and one of the most respected PMA programs (that's Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy) in the country.
There's something wrong with this picture, right?
Wrong. The Caltech Beavers -- yes, the university has a full-on athletics department -- won its first conference basketball game since 1985 last night, narrowly edging out the Occidental Tigers in the final game of the 2010-11 season.
The victory marked the end of a 310-game losing streak for the Beavers. Senior Ryan Elmquist, who scored half of Caltech's 46 points, sealed it by making one of two free throws with 3 seconds left, leading the few people who were studying attending the game at Braun Athletic Center to totally freak out.
Elmquist, the star of the game, will go on to play computer software engineer at Google, according to ESPN.
Elated Caltech coach Oliver Eslinger summed it all up:
"We know what it's like to lose" Eslinger said. "There's the philosophy, 'Oh, you can learn a lot from losing.' I don't want to learn anything more from losing. I want to start winning."