Who has the most notorious graduate?
It’s March. Maybe you’ve heard of it? The third month of the year, oh and also IT’S BRACKET TIME BABY!
Years ago I did a bracket based on the greatest alumni from each school. It was a ton of fun, and eventually Tina Fey cut down the nets for Virginia. Now we’re doing something a little different.
WELCOME TO THE SHITTY ALUMNI BRACKET! First off, know that this is all extremely subjective. If you love Rob Riggle’s comedy or Moby’s music, then more power to you. Also, obviously this is all supposed to be a joke — so don’t take it too seriously. The Shitty Alumni Bracket was was done by combing over the alumni lists of every school in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament and picking the individuals I think are, well, kinda the most shitty.
It wasn’t long before I hit some real roadblocks. My methodology was pretty clear and I tried to keep is as sound as possible: Who did the most harm to the most amount of people? Let’s break it down.
South Region
Immediately I knew this was going to be a damn-near impossible task. We had a first round matchup between George Wallace, the horrific Alabama segregationist governor against Rush Limbaugh. There’s no doubt either one of these two dead racists deserved to be shittiest, but in the end Wallace had to run the table — even against Ted Cruz. It’s been said that Wallace wasn’t actually a racist, but a populist who loved to play into the prejudices of Alabama voters. This might actually make him a worse human being, because he inherently knew what was happening was wrong, but embraced, supported, and enabled it for his own means. What a dirtbag.
It might be surprising to see Chip and Joanna Gaines in this bracket, but man, I can’t stand them. Turning on HGTV used to be my happy place where I could binge watch House Hunters until I was content. Now it’s just the Gaines’ on all the damn time.
East Region
For the most part the South was just ugly racism and poor remodeling. The East is where this project started to get really ugly. Eric Justin Toth of Purdue replaced Osama Bin Laden on the FBI’s most-wanted list as being the most prolific producer, and distributor of child pornography in the world.
Thankfully his ass was thrown in prison, otherwise he’d run the table. On the other hand I think both Joel Osteen and Mitch McConnell have caused inordinate amounts of damage to the fabric of the United States in the venue of religion and politics.
Both are shameless self-promoters who sell out their personal beliefs for personal gain. McConnell gets the edge because he actively helped to undermine and destroy democracy.
Midwest Region
This might as well be called “The Jim Jones Bracket.” Sure, there are some horrible people here — but nobody compares to Jones, who orchestrated the mass murder-suicide at Jonestown which killed 909 cult members, including 276 children, and Jones himself who committed suicide rather than be arrested.
Nobody else in the midwest really warrants discussion. I think Texas’ Greg Abbot is an absolutely horrible human, but he’s not “kill almost 1,000 people” bad.
West Region
This was a really difficult region to hammer down. The majority of these schools don’t have a truly horrible person among them. UCLA was my first odds-on favorite, but towards the end it got really granular and I had to think about society at a macro level.
In my opinion Christopher Poole and 4chan have done more damage to the internet than any other single entity. His ceaseless belief in “anonymity at all costs” helped spin the entirety of the internet away from accountability and owning your words, spreading to Twitter and beyond to help nurture hate speech.
This damage will be felt for generations, and he’s to blame.
To be honest, Rob Riggle caught a stray here, as did Moby and Don McClean. It is what it is, I could just go another lifetime and not hear “American Pie” again.
The Final Four
George Wallace vs. Mitch McConnell: Two incredible douchebags. The tiebreaker here is that McConnell is still alive, and still causing damage to American society — while Wallace’s attempts were derailed by the Civil Rights Movement. I hope Wallace is looking up at us right now and see’s that he’s still a loser.
Jim Jones vs. Christopher Poole: There’s something to be said about the sociological damage 4chan has done, but it still doesn’t compare to the actual loss of human life on such a mammoth level. Jim Jones’ “People’s Temple” church was the cause of the single greatest loss of civilian American life outside of 9/11. To the end he convinced his scared followers that the government were going to murder their children, which is why they had to kill themselves first. Easily one of the greatest monsters in U.S. history, so he wins.
Shitty Alumni Championship
Mitch McConnell vs. Jim Jones
We can apply a lot of the same logic here too. I feel like history will support how much damage McConnell did to the American way of life, but I cannot get past the horrors of Jonestown. Yes, this makes McConnell a slightly better college graduate than one of the worst cult leaders in world history.
JIM JONES IS THE SHITTIEST ALUMNI OF 2023!
Congratulations to the Hoosiers for cutting down the nets.
