It was a dark and stormy night, and four Brandeis first-years ventured onto the ... other side of Sherman dinning hall. Nervous about stories they had heard as prospective students, trembling with first-year anxiety and fear, they place their plates filled with mac and cheese on the bare table-sans tray. The alarms sound off and the infamous "Kosher cops" appear from behind the frozen yogurt machine. Immortalized through legend and University folklore, the Kosher Cops-enforcers of kashrut-live on as one of Brandeis' favorite exaggerated realities.Despite its short, five-decade life span, Brandeis is heartily endowed with its own supply of myths and collegiate legends. Although based less on the stereotypical haunted nights and ex-prom queens and more on misunderstood historical events, the intrigue and allure of such tales will remain as long as there exists misinformation and a little imagination



Football

A mystery that itches at the core of Brandeis school spirit ,and is especially prevalent around Super Bowl season, is the absence of intercollegiate football from the Brandeis athletic agenda. Students offer explanations in both extreme and practical forms.

Mira Elias '06 said she heard that because the Gosmans, the namesakes of the Brandeis athletic complex, lost their son through a football accident, they stipulated that they would only donate to Brandeis with a guarantee that the school would discontinue varsity contact sports. Other students cite some discrepancy between Jewish law and football, while others simply claim the absence is because "Jews can't play football."

Like most myths, these accounts are perhaps a means for the skeptic to create alternative explanations.

In fact, Brandeis had a football team starting in 1950 with the help of legendary player and coach Benny Freidman. In their first game, the Judges beat Harvard 3-0. Six years and 10 seasons later, the school decided to end the team's existence.

Regardless of whatever personal interests steered the Gosman donation, the dismantling of the football team predates the construction or donation of the Gosman Sports and Convocation center, leaving this myth not only illogical but impossible.

According to Brandeis' founding President Abram Sachar, in his book A Host at Last, it was because of conflicting goals and growing exclusivity that football was cancelled. A few years after the school's opening, with growing accreditation and high acceptance rates of graduates into professional schools, applications began to exceed the school's capacity.

"When only one out of seven or eight qualified applicants are accepted, those recruited to participate in football are at a strong disadvantage academically," wrote Sachar. In a Boston Daily Record article from May 18, 1960, Sachar was quoted as saying that there were not enough interested and qualified people within the school to create a "great team," and that Brandeis was not entitled to "issue scholarships simply for athletic ability."

The official financial reasoning is confirmed by Sports Information Director Adam Levin, who noted, "on one hand, they wanted to showcase Brandeis to a national audience, but football wasn't the best way to do that." Requiring far too many people to field a team and as one of the "most expensive sports, it wasn't worth it,." Levin said.

According to these sources, expanding the football program was not part of the school's mission or vision; rather, Brandeis sought to be a serious academic institution.



The Castle

Although Usen Castle is most often known for its doors that lead nowhere, its pie-shaped rooms and the basement caf lovingly known as Chums, rumors of secret passageways and underground tunnels leading to East Quad and Usdan have raised many eyebrows. A mention of "secret passageways" in the Castle on the Residence Life Web site seems to indicate their existence. But "secret" may be referring to areas of denied accessibility, for no official word could confirm the claim.

"I can tell you from my experience and based on the campus building documents that no 'secret passageways' connect the Castle and East Quad or Usdan," Peter Baker, director of administration-operations for Facilities Services, said. "Areas such as mechanical equipment rooms, electrical closets and utility service areas are closed to the public for obvious safety reasons."

Lyndsay Agans, Castle Quad director, said she is not able to confirm or deny the myth.

"From what I have heard though, there are tunnels connecting out the back of the Castle beyond [the] peripheral road. While the operating area of the Castle doesn't seem to hold any great mysteries, there are parts that remain off access (including areas such as F tower)," Agans said.

Before Usen Castle belonged to Brandeis, the building was part of Middlesex College, a medical school founded in the 1920s. Cryptic Castle stories can be attributed to this medical history, as the area used to serve a very different purpose than coffeehouses and student housing.

According to Professor Marc Brettler (NEJS), as late as the 1970s, the "refrigerator units in Chums were still in from the morgues and the Castle Commons was where they used to have operations."

According to Amy Finsteins '98, who wrote her senior thesis about the Castle, the commons were indeed used as a physiology lab and a medical teaching facility.

"In the process of renovating, they did close off certain areas of the castle and those became the 'secret passageways,'" Prof. Gerald Bernstein (FA), an architectural historian, said. "The 'passageways' represent a number of things connecting the castle. Probably steam tunnels ... not very romantic." Other then the closed-off areas, the steam tunnels are the only way to explain the myth. Bernstein also said that the existing tunnels are not big enough for human access.

It seems that students will have to find other ways to bear the winter chill than traveling through the alleged underground tunnels from the Castle to Usdan.

The "dramatic effect" of these myths is what Bernstein says is so important, noting that every school needs a little drama and excitement.

All in all, the charm of the castle is the "enigmatic quality which surrounds it," Agans said.



NASA

While whispers of the "secret NASA lab on campus" echo among students making their daily trek up Rabb steps, scientific research is being conducted right below their feet in the Ashton Graybiel Spatial Orientation Laboratory (AGSO). Although publicly acknowledged and even mentioned on the admissions tour, the existence of the lab located in Rabb basement has taken on an element of secrecy. This could be attributed to its limited access and its partial NASA sponsorship, which in its very nature seems to connote exclusivity and excitement.

"We are not owned or run by NASA. We do some work for NASA, but we don't do exclusive work for them," said AGSO lab administrative assistant Cindy Faulkner. According to Lab Co-director James Lackner (PSYC), research at the Graybiel lab is partially funded by peer-reviewed research grants, some of which are awarded by NASA. He added that the lab is also supported by other agencies such as the National Institute for Health (NIH) and the U.S Air Force.

Co-director Paul Dizio (PSYC) said that currently, NASA sponsors about half of the research at the lab, with about $1 million a year in funding from the agency.

Research at the lab explores ways in which people perceive their orientation in space in view of different situations. This includes human movement control and adaptation in weightless, artificial gravity, earths force, or high force environments like in space travel or flight.

"We are fundamentally interested in normal force environments. But, one way to understand normal situations is to understand unusual ones," Dizio said. The primary research funded by NASA addresses such "unusual" situations as space flight. For example, said Dizio, research asks why astronauts have problems telling up and down in space or why they have instability problems when they come back down to earth.

The lab hosts an interesting and rare array of equipment to aide in their research. Chairs and platforms that spin and move up and down simulate motion sickness attained from sea travel or create alternate gravitational environments.

Weighing in at seven tons, towering seven feet high, with a 22-foot diameter, the Slow Rotation Room is only the second of its kind in the United States. Dizio made a parallel to the "carnival ride" that spins around and pushes passengers against the wall and explained that like a "giant rotating space doughnut," the room can accelerate of up to 35 revolutions per minute, and simulate a force of 4 g, equivalent to increasing a person's weight sixfold. The usual speed used in the lab does not reach these heights, however, simulating only a six percent increase in weight.

"It is a dangerous piece of equipment. If you were naave and wandered in here, there could be a problem. This is also why things seem a little secretive," Dizio said.

The secrecy surrounding the lab, Dizio believes, stems from the location of the lab, its accessibility and NASA's defense work, which he noted does not involve the Graybiel lab. The cryptic basement location is due to a lack of other available options, and not an attempt at cover up. Special authorization is in fact needed to enter, but all research is published in "normal scientific journals" and available to the public.

"The front door is locked because there is a lot of expensive equipment. We have had to deal with vandalism," noted Dizio.

"Hundreds of Brandeis students have participated in our research projects over the years. I have no idea why students think it is a secret lab other than that many of us enjoy mysteries and intrigue," Lackner said.



Ivy League

Perhaps a nod to Brandeis' high level of academic excellence, many students mention the possibility of Ivy League connections.

Elenora Ziser '06 said she heard that Brandeis was supposedly offered the chance to be a member of the Ivy League and turned it down because such exclusivity went against the principles of Justice Louis D. Brandeis. Ziser noted that if the rumor is true, Brandeis most likely rejected the offer because of the implication that Brandeis would not be able to continue granting merit-based scholarships once joining the Ivy League.

"This myth seems highly unlikely and logically impossible. Army and Navy might possibly have been invited because there were longstanding athletic competitions among them and the Ivies." Cathy Fallon of the Office of Development, said.

The invitation is not very plausible, she continued, because Brandeis only had a football team for a brief time and by the time the Ivy League football division was in full swing in the 1960s, Brandeis football was no more.

"Nothing about the Ivy League appears in Sachar's book about the first 20 years of Brandeis. It is also unlikely because most of the Ivies are schools with over a 200 year history ... compared to them, Brandeis is a 'start-up," Fallon said.

"Wherever this myth might have come from, I can only imagine it was a piece of fiction or a dream!" Fallon said.