Jim Ryan addendum

I decided that I should have posted just a few of the things we learned about JR that made us decide we all loved him unwaveringly. I mean, there’s the obvious fact that he’s adorable (we wish there were more pictures), and that he clerked for Rehnquist, and that he’s an amazing prof with a great sense of humor, poking fun of himself, students, and the law itself, in a way that doesn’t hurt or upset anyone b/c he’s so balanced in his viewpoints.

Then there’s the fave story about him and Smith playing in the Pong for PILA tournament my first year. They decimated their official opponents so quickly, and there was so much time before the next match, that they offered to play some of the bystanders for fun. Well, Tiff and I, neither any good at all at beer pong, kinda thought the opportunity to play our prof would not be one we would soon forget. And it was not. We fared even worse than the first team, and the highlight of the game was when JR started mocking us. Nothing like your Con Law prof taunting you, “we’re getting thirsty over here,” to know you really lucked out when you got your professor assignments. Trash talking is pretty hot.

Another of our favorites is the story of how he met his wife, which he told us over one of those “take your professor to lunch” lunches and had the four of us in tears we were laughing so hard. All I remember is that it was at Barrister's, he was very drunk, and it was hysterical. I'll have to fill this in once someone with a better memory reminds me, but so far no one is replying to my requests for details. [UPDATE: he had had a crush on her all first semester, but she had a boyfriend. rumor after xmas break was that she was now single. JR decided he would make his move at barrister's and was very excited. only he showed up and got very drunk. then, he made his way to her and some guy she was dancing with, and proceeded to say something very inane to the guy, while ignoring her completely. somehow she figured out that he was interested in her and asked him out. and to that, i say good move. b/c she managed to land JR. not bad.]

But all of that pales next to what I find to be the best tidbit ever about JR, and maybe about any law professor—he played rugby (i want to say professional, but i doubt that's right, so i'll just say semi-pro, and even in the absence of that, it's still rugby) in Australia and New Zealand in his time between undergrad and law school. I’m sorry, but there’s no denying that that should get your vote for hottest law school dean.

And finally, all of this talk of JR and how much we loved him, just makes me want to post the pictures of T-Mil, Rada, and I in the shirts we made to take our Con Law final--

Not only is people making t-shirts in which to take their finals hot (c'mon, don't even try to pretend it isn't), but surely it says something about how much we liked the class.