Last weekend was the capper to “40s Week” at Bradley University, a chance for student-athletes from different sports to come together and celebrate a shared love. Based on the name, you might think it involved the ladies dressed up as Rosie the Riveter while the guys put on their Zoot Suits best and jitterbugged to some Glenn Miller.

But the PEORIA JOURNAL STAR says “40s Week” doesn’t celebrate The Greatest Generation, but something a little more relevant to today’s college students - 40s of malt liquor. Apparently it’s a weeklong celebration of cheap, hangover-inducing swill, encouraging student-athletes (and presumably anyone with $1.29 and no taste buds) the chance to party ’til they puke.

Unfortunately for the students, the university decided to clamp down on underage drinking, with one massive house party drawing the wrath of police. How big was the party? It took the cops hours to write up all the tickets for underage drinking, and that (one would assume) is after who knows how many kids escaped out of back doors, windows and alleyways.

In all 65 students received tickets, with 39 of them being athletes on teams such as men’s cross country, soccer, baseball and tennis, and women’s tennis, softball, cross country and track and field. But it was the cross-country teams that took the biggest hit, as they are the alleged “hosts” of “40s Week,” with seven of the nine men’s runners and nine of the 16 women’s runners getting popped.

I know it sounds odd that cross-country runners would be heavy drinkers, but think about it for a second: in order to be successful, you need to be rail-thin. And it’s impossible to drink more than one 40 of malt liquor without puking your guts out. Instant weight management! Perhaps we should check to see what they have in those “water” cups.

At the end of the day, I think this proves one point: hiring Billy Dee Williams as the cross-country coach was a terrible idea. (Plus, his experience is more strolling the mean streets of the city rather than off-road running):