O-Team Preseason to Emphasize Lying Technique
The 2017 O-Team preseason training program will cultivate within new and returning leaders the poise, stamina, and drive necessary to effectively lie their orange and maroon asses off to first year students about the next four years of their lives, Team Captain John Adams announced in a press conference yesterday.
“Good lying technique is the trickiest but most important skill that any O-Team Leader could possess,” Adams said. “These incoming students need to whole-heartedly believe that their caring, intelligent professors never grade based off of political positions, and that black students fit right in, and that the white paint on the Admissions House totally isn’t indicative of the Confederate flag-bearing supremacists around Sunbury. These lies make students feel much more comfortable during this really stressful transition. It’s our job to provide them with the falsest sense of confidence imaginable.”
The meticulous regimen follows a high frequency, high intensity plan, targeting mental acuity and physical strength. These kinds of training programs have proven effective among other universities, most notably Duke, where retention rates have risen steadily as students develop incredibly rosy expectations.
The training program also emphasizes core interpersonal and intrapersonal behaviors. Of proper lying technique, Adams commented, “The fundamentals include a compassionate and sincere demeanor, clear communication skills, and a sick sadism. Proper hydration—Dunkin iced coffee and Jose Cuervo—is also key.”
Last year, the Susquehanna O-Team averaged a 42% success rate telling lies that first-year students actually believed, coming in well under the national collegiate median of 86%, as well as Bucknell’s own 78%.
“The stats were troubling,” Adams said. “But we’re confident that we’ll be able to pick up our performance this year.”
Mastery of effective lying technique is also crucial for Move-In Day operations, notes Parent and Family Coordinator Amanda Reynor.
“Assuring parents that their kids’ roommates won’t sexile them is a little more nuanced than lying directly to students about the impossibility of being roofied and raped. But the job is still absolutely necessary,” Reynor said. “O-Team Leaders need to foster a mindset where parents and guardians believe that their precious babies are in a safe, supportive environment. That way, they leave campus confident in their children’s decision to attend Susquehanna, and also in their own decision to pay the tuition bill.”
