I know Priya Patel. Yes, the Priya Patel. You know, the one who had a goal post land on her head on Saturday.
And she happens to be one of my very best friends here. So, needless to say, Saturday night was not the most fun for myself, my friends and, as you can very well imagine, Priya.
It's not often I find myself on the "inside" of such a big event. (Okay, so in the grand scheme of things, this wasn't huge, but in terms of the Duke scene, Saturday was a big deal.)
It was what people were talking about. Unfortunately for the football team, I think people discussed the goal post incident more than they talked about the actual game. (On that note, I would like to throw a "Congratulations!" and a "thank you!" out to the football team. Good job.)
I will admit that I was rather impressed as Saturday night unfolded: Word spread throughout the school and correctly at that. For the campus-wide game of telephone that it was, most people heard the general story quite accurately.
Priya. Hit. Goal post. Hospital.
When I arrived at the hospital (after abandoning my car on Towerview with a flat tire, a jack, three able men and a cab driver), I found a number of people already there who I didn't even realize knew about the incident.
Once again, I was impressed.
Other friends trickled into the waiting room as the minutes passed, and our cell phones created a symphony of rings and vibrations as phone call after text message arrived from friends and acquaintances still on campus asking for the current state of affairs.
One friend asked, how would this event have played out a mere 15 years ago, before nearly everyone had a cell phone in hand?
As the hours passed by, the frequency of phone calls decreased along with the sense of worry.
One CT scan and almost five hours later, Priya found herself on the way back to West, exhausted and with a little bit of a headache. (Not bad, considering a goal post fell on her head, eh?)
The next day, almost everyone I knew asked how Priya was doing. Was it really the Priya they knew? They wondered. Rumor had delivered the story to the entire campus, and by the time it hit the cover of The Chronicle on Monday morning, it was practically old news.
In this fast-paced age of technology, when a friend studying abroad in Rome was able to read Priya's story on The Chronicle online before most of you woke up on Sunday morning, I can't help but be impressed. People spread gossip and news, good and bad, using the Internet, cell phones and BlackBerry devices so quickly it makes me wonder how accurate the information is.
When I read the news reports about Saturday, most of them get the story right.
When I talk to people on campus, everyone who hasn't been living in Bostock seems to know what's going on.
Has all this technology really changed the nature of gossip and rumor? Does playing the game of telephone with a cell phone help make widespread stories retain their truth?
Alas, rumor hasn't really changed all that much: It still falls victim to the "I heards" and the "she saids" that have tainted it throughout time.
While discussing the incident in my 8:30 a.m. abnormal psychology lecture Monday morning, a student told her description of the story.
As other students added their versions, one exclaimed, "I heard she was trying to catch [the goal post]!"
No, ladies and gentlemen, our dear Priya was not, in fact, foolish enough to try to catch the falling goal post. I did ask her, just in case I'd missed something.
So, perhaps technology enabled more of Priya's friends to find out how she was feeling-as evidenced by the number of Facebook wall posts she's received-but even in this time of speedy news delivery, it still hasn't eliminated the foolishness some people infuse into rumors.
Maybe the next time a goal post falls on someone (which I hope will be a very long time from now), technology will have changed the nature of rumor. Only time, and the football team's record, will tell.
Allie Vergotz is a Trinity sophomore. Her column runs every other Friday.
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