"Class"ic card of the week

Mark Carrier, 1990 Score

One summer many eons ago I was at my friend’s shore house and it was his cousin’s graduation party. There was a small banner on one of the backyard fences that read: Congratulations “Amy.” We got a big kick out of that, because the sign seemed to imply that Amy was not, in fact, her real name, and that we were all celebrating the accomplishments of an imposter. Perhaps this “Amy” hadn’t even graduated at all. We were also drinking a lot, which made this about ten times funnier.

Anyway, it is in that vein that I present to you Mark Carrier, esteemed member of the “Class” of 1990. Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge.

What is Score trying to tell us here, with “Class” in quotes? My initial guess was the implication that the Class of 1990, ironically, had no class. To explore this possibility a bit further, I did some research and discovered that this classless bunch of morons included both Emmitt Smith and Junior Seau. Not that I know either fellow in any capacity whatsoever, but I find it suffice it to say that each man’s virtue of class has gone unquestioned throughout their respective professional careers, whether be it in football, in dancing, or in classy television hosting gigs. And while I’m certain that at least several members of this class left much to be desired in the realm of actual class, there is nothing glaring that, as a whole, would make this class particularly classless.

Then I got to thinking that perhaps “Class” of 1990 was a clever nod to the inadequacy of the entire student-athlete system. It’s not as if all, or even possibly most of the men of the Class of 1990 were necessarily graduating from college; they were only, in the sense of this class as an entirety, graduating to the NFL. (In that regard, they differed from “Amy.”) Furthermore, that they realized the full potential of their college education is, based on stereotypes and other hard evidence, a leap of faith. So we must ask: Did the members of this class actually go to class? I mean, just check out Mark Carrier. Does he look like he knows the difference between a proton and a neutron? (They teach about that in college, right?)

But allow me to disprove yet another of my hypotheses, as the theory of the dumb jock does little to distinguish the “Class” of 1990 from any other class. And with regards to Mark Carrier:



A devastating hitter with muscle and intelligence

It would seem that looks are indeed deceiving, as Mark Carrier himself has been deemed, by his own football card, to be intelligent in the football sense. We can therefore conclude via the transitive property that his football intelligence was the byproduct of a general educational awareness. Also, his mustache is classy.

Conclusion: the “Class” of 1990 was not a nod to any inherent irony, but an error in grammatical judgment on the part of Score. For that, it is Score, and not the Class of 1990, that lacks class. And to that I would say, Score really "Scored" with this series. Boom, roasted.

Did you know?
However, the theory of Bill –- owner of this card and proprietor of others -– argues the possibility that, when not playing football, Mark Carrier was employed with Jolstens, the popular company with a monopoly on class rings. I subscribe to this theory based on its humor and validity.