Well if you’ve made it this far, you should know what you are getting into. Welcome to Colonial Inauguration: a terrible representation of your next four years in Washington. One thing you should know about your place of education for the next four years is that George Washington is like the Masters: a university unlike any other. GW is D.C.’s largest private landowner and still has trouble with its elderly neighbors.

You can now call yourself a student at one of the most expensive universities in the nation, and if you are smart, can live in one of the most sexually active dorms in the nation. But outside studying, drinking and overrated internships there is another important facet of college life: sports.

When fall rolls around, you won’t be able to tailgate outside the GW football stadium in sub-zero temperatures. If you are lucky you’ll take a Metro ride to FedEx stadium to see the Washington Redskins. If you make it to the stadium, congratulations; tickets to the Skins are harder to find than sober students in Thurston on a Friday night.

As most students are from the New York and New England areas, it is not difficult to find a place to watch a football game. There is an abundance of bars that show the NFL, and the 96 channels that most dorms offer will suffice.

Everywhere you turn, there will be a Red Sox or a Yankees fan. Please do your best to ignore them.

Realizing that Boston and New York are hours away, everyone is crossing their fingers for the new boys in the league. With the Washington Nationals in town, and in first place in the N.L. East as of press time, a playoff run is beginning to look possible. So if you are bored in the fall, get out to RFK Stadium and cheer on a team that a nationally renowned journalist characterized as “bad players playing hard.”

Don’t feel like paying upwards of $50 for a ticket? Good. The GW athletic department has much to offer. The Colonials play in the Atlantic 10 along with teams such as Dayton, Xavier, Fordham and Temple. GW is a contender in most sports, and if not, they are at least competitive.

Tell all of your friends at the University of Michigan that there are other things going on during the fall besides “Big House” football. GW’s fall sports lineup boasts a number of good teams. The best sport to watch in the fall is volleyball. The Colonials play in the Smith Center and usually draw a good number of fans. The crew team dresses in their singlets and usually proceeds to cheer emphatically for the girls, completely disregarding the score or opponent.

Throughout the entire fall, most GW students have their minds set on one thing: basketball. Coming off an NCAA tournament run, GW’s basketball teams should have good schedules and pretty good seasons. The women’s team was able to top Mississippi State in the first round of the NCAA tournament but eventually lost to the University of North Carolina in the second round. Despite losing leading scorer and All-America candidate Anna Monta?ana, the squad should be able to have a good season behind the play of A-10 rookie of the year Kim Beck.

The men’s basketball team was last year’s “it,” said ESPN.com columnist Andy Katz, and validated the title with an A-10 championship trophy. No matter what is posted on GWhoops.com, a popular GW basketball message board, the team is not terrible and the coaching staff will not get fired. If Pops Mensah-Bonsu and Mike Hall decide to pull out of the NBA draft, the team is poised to make a run deep into the NCAA tournament.

With the success of last year, GW’s schedule will get tougher. Fans will be able to see the Colonials at North Carolina State among other major locations. Locally, the annual BB&T, which takes place at the MCI Center, has a changed format. But the final game will pit the Colonials against geographic rival Maryland.

On behalf of the GW community, come support your team. There is nothing like hearing 5,000 screaming Colonial fans scream “you suck” to an opposing player.

As I said on the sports page to the departing seniors only weeks ago, GW sports is not in the Big Ten, does not have a football team, but is just good enough. We have said goodbye and now it’s time to welcome all of the class of 2009 to George Washington and urge you to take advantage of all Washington has to offer. See the Nationals, root for the Redskins, but most importantly show the Colonials that you care.