Perspective | The naked truth about streaking at the University of Maryland

“Please be assured,” wrote Thomas, “that neither of these impressions is right.”

That exercise was “nude working,” what at the moment we name streaking. Again then, it was understood that the fad began there, a minimum of by these on the School Park campus.

The nation reached peak streak in 1974, the yr Ray Stevens launched his novelty track “The Streak” and Time devoted 1,100 phrases to what the journal known as “the dermis epidemic.” Wrote Time: “With astonishing swiftness, streaking, the artwork of the point-to-point sprint within the buff, has burgeoned into an unabashed, pandemic American fad.”

It might have appeared as if the pandemic had exploded swiftly, but it surely had been percolating for a minimum of 5 years on the College of Maryland. A March 3, 1969, front-page story within the campus newspaper, the Diamondback, was headlined: “Why nude runners do what they do.” The article recounted the “barrage of nude runners” that had damaged out the earlier week, together with a nocturnal jog taken by 4 males from the Prince Georges Corridor dorm.

The story positioned nude working within the class of campus hijinks similar to goldfish consuming and flagpole sitting, but additionally talked about a extra political facet.

“It’s a response over a response,” professor of psychology Robert S. Waldrop defined.

The catalyzing incident had occurred the earlier week, when college president Wilson H. Elkins was summoned to Annapolis and grilled by state politicians over the newest concern of the literary journal at Maryland’s Baltimore County campus. The journal had printed pictures from a Corcoran Gallery exhibit by photographer Bob Stark that included 10 images of two bare dancers.

Lawmakers needed to know what Elkins was going to do about it.

“The filthy minds have taken over the universities,” mentioned state Sen. Frederick C. Malkus (D-Decrease Shore) on the impromptu listening to. “Would good colleges like Brigham Younger or Notre Dame permit this kind of factor?”

When an Related Press story about of this and different nude runs at UMD unfold across the nation — showing in such locations as San Angelo, Tex.; Charleston, S.C.; and Rockford, Sick. — it omitted the protest angle.

For his or her half, the nude runners advised the Diamondback’s reporter that working bare helped relieve the monotony of campus life. They mentioned it was a fad they hoped would deliver consideration to their dorm.

Over the subsequent few years, bare runs turned a function of dorm life at Maryland. Some runs had been rigorously orchestrated, with automobiles and drivers strategically positioned for clothes-free runners to hop into. Some runs had been large, that includes as much as 600 bare college students.

Sometimes, safety was known as. In October 1972, a senior named Jeffrey Dulberg was introduced earlier than the varsity’s student-run Campus Judicial Board and accused of injuring the well-being of the college by working bare across the Ellicott dormitory advanced.

Dulberg argued that he hadn’t been charged with indecent publicity, hadn’t jeopardized anybody’s security and had acted completely inside the customs and traditions of the college. He was discovered responsible and ordered into educational probation. Dulberg appealed the choice and gained.

By November 1973, the runs had change into so frequent that the editors of the Diamondback felt compelled to announce they’d not be protecting each single one in every of them. “We don’t contemplate nudity obscene nor will we condone censorship in that respect,” they wrote. “We do, nevertheless, reserve the precise to keep away from day-to-day protection of school pranks.”

That very same yr, the campus’s different paper, Argus, tweaked the pastime in its April Fools concern, working a parody categorized advert: “Will the blokes who gave the nude run the opposite night time please contact the ladies of LaPlata 5. We need to snort in your face.”

Some sources declare the phrase “streaking” was born round this time when a Washington TV information reporter protecting one in every of Maryland’s mass nude runs mentioned, “They’re streaking previous me proper now. It’s an unimaginable sight!”

Maybe, however Reply Man discovered the phrase utilized in that context as early as 1969. And it’s unattainable to say whether or not College of Maryland college students’ fondness for the follow immediately influenced different campuses.

It’s clear the Terps thought they had been pioneers. In March of 1974 — throughout a spate of high-profile streaking incidents across the nation, together with on the College of South Carolina (508 streakers) and the College of Georgia (almost 1,000 streakers) — a reporter for The Washington Night Star wrote: “Maryland streakers declare the nation’s first nude run in 1969, from the Bel Air Dormitory, and that the phrases ‘Nude Runner’ had been etched into the pavement outdoors the constructing to commemorate it. The run was made by a streaker recognized solely because the ‘Snake,’ who took off to the strains of the ‘William Inform’ overture.”

If the Snake was 20 in 1969, he’d be 74 now. Is he on the market, able to go on the file and declare his place in historical past?