In less than a year, writing about thefacebook.com has slipped from crafty to clichéd.

Friends of mine have handed in sociological analyses of it for classes. Articles about it have littered newspapers everywhere, from the New York Times to that ball of incomprehensible muttering that is the Yale Daily News. And of course, that’s not even counting the innumerable soul-searching instant messages I’ve received from converted friends, or the time I was sent a text message at 9:30 a.m. that informed me that I had been poked by a man named “Helidon Hasanaliaj.”

Basically, to make a long story short, if you have a pulse and a computer, you know that this website has waged a fierce battle for that crucial eight-hour block of time where checking other people’s away messages and doing nothing once reigned supreme.

So why am I writing about it now?

Well, the horizons of thefacebook.com are broadening. There is, arguably, a fertile ground most have not yet explored—even aside from the “intended vote” feature, or the “groups” function, which I considered largely pointless until I found the You Got Served Society.

This untapped realm is the world of sports.

But notably, by “sports” I do not mean to talk about that member of the women’s soccer team who’s in your Ec-10 section—orbiting ever so torturously on the outer rings of your “social net”—that you looked up that one time. Or fifty times. Per day.

In fact, stop looking her up right now—that’s just weird.

I’m talking bigger than Harvard, bigger than Cambridge and beyond our expansive but relatively unrecognized athletics program.

So here’s a simple math problem for you: (Fruitful intercollegiate community) + (The opportunity for typically collegiate time-wasting) + (Staying in touch with college friends) + (You realizing that major Division I athletes technically attend college) – (Helidon Hasanaliaj) = ?

Get it yet? This isn’t the LSAT’s, people.

But since we’re still on the education thing, here’s a brief history lesson to make it even clearer.

As sports fans—much less college sports fans—we were, once upon a time, relegated to buying tickets to games in order to directly experience the protagonists of our favorite sporting events. In conjunction with this development arose the popularity of radio, then television, and cable television, and ESPN, and satellites, and NFL Sunday Ticket, and most recently, packages like MLB.com’s MLB.TV. Amazing, right?

Enter thefacebook.com.

Ever since Mark E. Zuckerberg ’06-’07 and Co. began their seemingly endless march to bring most major colleges in