Step aside, football playbooks, because this weekend Scott Stadium hosted an AA meeting instead. It started with us Wahoo fans watching our team lose badly in the second quarter, but unbeknownst to us at the time—it was because of the fifth. That’s right, sons and daughters of the Commonwealth: the Virginia Cavaliers, currently ranked Top-12 in the ACC (until the website wakes up), lost to Wake Forest on Saturday, November 8. We didn’t just lose to Wake Forest, however, we lost to our own livers.
For the uninitiated: Fourth Year Fifth is a UVA ritual where many seniors attempt to drink a fifth of liquor (750 mL) on the morning of the last home game, often alongside a FourthYear 5K happening the same morning. It’s equal parts bravado, nostalgia, courage, and—to be clear, I’m describing the 5K with this sentence. Who drinks a fifth in the morning? Apparently, some fourth-years on our very own team. A third-year in Architecture—who matched a fourth-year player on Hinge and got instantly unmatched the second she DM’d him—told me: “Is it smart? No. Is it tradition? I’m pretty sure also no. But at UVA, where there’s a drink, there’s a will.”
The opening kickoff looked fine from the glass at the bottom of my own fifth. The first drive went as follows: one decent run, two throws to the concept of hope, and a punt that traveled as far as our current faith in the University’s administration. Wake Forest, catching secondhand buzz from the vanilla-vodka breeze rolling off the Hill, ran the ball like they had somewhere to be at 6 p.m.—damn those Virg deals!
At halftime came the crowd’s favorite player…and a plot twist? Our mounted Cavalier rode out on Sabre—yes, the actual horse. Multiple students said it looked like Sabre “clearly partook in the fifth” and “how does a horse find enough alcohol to get drunk?” The evidence? The trot turned into a full-on streak across the turf—and that isn’t symbolism, I mean a horse literally without pants. It was disgusting. Parents tried to cover their kids’ eyes as security tried to figure out the “equine streaker” protocol.
This, however, was just the precursor to the concession-stand incident. Grainy Snapchat footage shows Sabre clopping to a kiosk for a drink, only to discover the worst thing about Scott Stadium: the only High Noon flavor they sell is pineapple. Sabre reared, panic bloomed, and a worker ended up headed to the hospital with a shoulder injury. Me too, Sabre. Me too. Stadium officials say an investigation is ongoing—into the horse.
Third quarter, back to football: the defense fought, but apparently, you cannot tackle a running back and a hangover at the same time. By the fourth, Wake was calmly bleeding the clock; we were bleeding electrolytes. Postgame frustration was inevitable—concerned community members organized an online petition to vouch for a cancellation of the Fourth Year Fifth—at least when it came to horses and football players.
We asked one of the UVA football assistant coaches for a comment, and one giddily replied: “You know it’s funny, this is the first game we’ve ever distinctly told them to not partake in drinking. We were referring to the Fourth Year Fifth tradition, but now I’ve been wondering if this is the first time they’ve played drunk, or the first time they’ve played sober.”
While we wait to hear on the utilization of alcohol as a performance enhancement drug, the University itself declined to comment on the incident. And in this satirical universe—repeat: satire!—when asked for a comment, Interim President Paul Mahoney, trying to get brownie points with the fourth years who still miss Jim Ryan, drunkenly grabbed the mic and started slurring the words: “Who tf do you think gave the horse alcohol? Ain’t nobody closer with Sabre than me.” Perhaps the best part about UVA is that the charm and trap of being a Wahoo is that we are always ridiculous, sincere, and drunk at the same time.
This article is a satirical work. All characters, incidents, and quotes depicted are fictional and not intended to represent real events, individuals, or statements. Nothing described here happened, no quotes are real, and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental and absolutely not actionable. Please don’t email anyone about the horse; we respect Sabre’s privacy.
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