A cage fighting ring has been discovered in the Colorado State University Andrew G. Clark building. The combatants: first-years and geese.

The cage matches occur in a Clark basement room between the room housing the sacrificial altar, where virgins are sacrificed to Cam the Ram to keep him perpetually young, and the meeting room for the sacred council of squirrels that actually run the university.

“You have to teach them to enjoy the fear in the first-year’s eyes when they let out their first war honk.” -Goose Whisperer, underground championship goose trainer

The fighting ring is run by a seemingly perpetual fifth-year who has somehow managed to go to CSU on and off for the last eight years and seems to have no graduation plans any time soon.

“Life’s too good here,” said Sloof Lirpa, the current organizer of the fight ring. “I don’t feel like I’ve found anything that really speaks to me yet, so there’s no reason to rush things. (Plus) running the betting on the fight ring is way more lucrative than any job I could get straight out of college. Have you looked at the job market for an education degree recently?”

Lirpa said he got into the business of cage fighting after being chosen by the previous organizer to continue the illustrious legacy of the institution and was shocked to discover how much support there was from almost every corner of the university to watch the two most despised groups on campus, first-years and geese, go toe-to-toe.

“You would be shocked at the people we see down here betting on the fights,” Lirpa said.

Lirpa indicated that he had seen members of the university’s administration in attendance at the spring fight club along with well-known professors who he refused to name, explaining they were some of his highest-betting customers. These high-profile attendees are joined by hordes of undergraduate and graduate students who pack themselves into the rickety stands to watch the blood sport every other week.

Lirpa even insinuated that the proposed tuition increase was being suggested to cover a particularly poor bet made by a member of the administration toward the end of last year’s fight season but stopped himself from outright confirming it.

“The graduate students seem to take the most pleasure in it,” Lirpa said. “In fact, grad students tend to be our best goose trainers.”

One graduate student, speaking under the condition of anonymity, talked about why she got into training geese for the fight ring and what it takes to train a championship fighting goose.

“You really have to have some fire to pass on to the goose,” said the Goose Whisperer, as she’s known in the community. “You have to teach them to enjoy the fear in the first-year’s eyes when they let out their first war honk. Any time I wonder whether what I’m doing is right or I lose heart after a big loss, I just think back to all those requests for extensions the first-years email me at 11:58 p.m. the night an assignment is due. Or I think back on the days where six of them showed up to class in a lecture hall designed for a hundred, and it gives me drive.”

The glint in her eye upon issuing this last statement was enough to send a shiver down the interviewer’s spine. Last year’s championship goose, Razorbeak, who was sitting in on the interview, had to peck at the Goose Whisperer to pull her out of her murderous reverie.

Razorbeak refused to discuss his shocking championship run last spring or the events surrounding his surprise retirement announcement at the start of this season despite multiple requests for comment.

Discussing the future of the fight ring, Lirpa expressed deep concern.

“The first-years just aren’t as tough as they used to be,” Lirpa said. “With all the improvements in dorms in recent years, we have found that the newer first-years are too soft to make good goose fighters.”

Lirpa explained that the best goose fighters come from the older, run-down dorms. The terrible conditions and ostracism from the rest of the normal dorms harden the first-years from these dorms and give them a chip on their shoulder that makes them perfect goose fighters.

“First-years from like Academic Village or Parmelee, with their air conditioning and top-of-the-line accommodations and dining halls right close by, make for some terrible goose fighters,” Lirpa said. “Newsom, on the other hand, (is) perfect. Only half the lights work, they have to walk through the snow for every meal, they are constantly roasted by the central heating (and) even the dorm rooms themselves feel like prison cells. It couldn’t be better! Same with the towers. Being stuck in an elevator once or twice a week for hours on end really does wonders for a goose fighter, mentally.”

Lirpa applauded the university for renovating the lagoon on campus in recent years to pull in better geese and said that he and other supporters of the fight ring were doing their best to stop the development of humane dorms on campus, but that it is a losing battle. He sees a time in the near future when the fight ring has no viable first-year fighters to pull from, leading to a tragic end for a beloved tradition here on campus.

If you would like to show your support for the fight ring and get involved in its ongoing struggle here on campus, please whisper the CSU fight song to the nearest squirrel, and they will get you in touch with the fight ring organizers.