Also, immflamatory Blogs like “The Smoking Musket” are fanning the flames for the weak minded. Now. to me that blog is funny, I enjoy reading it, and take it as it is meant, as all in good fun. But, some people are not that astute, and believe everthing they see and read, and act on it. See the last National Election and you will get my point.

Considering the number of second-hand accounts I’ve heard of fights started in MSG by UConn fans back in December, I doubt seriously that Husky Honor is working.

The most profound resolution to preventing bad fan behavior is to remove the fans. Forget fines that can be easily covered by a large program like WVU. If the NCAA really wanted to punish those WVU fans that cross the line, the very next home game will be in an empty arena. Its up to WVU to decide to issue refunds.

You’ll have tens of thousands of ticket owners — people who don’t cause problems — legitimately pissed off something serious. Some serious peer-pressure will force the few a-holes instigating the problems to reconsider their actions. Also, a ton of pressure will be brought upon WVU’s Athletic Association to more actively hunt down bad fans during the games.

I would also accept “ban the student section for a game” but if and only if you can prove the student section was the only section causing problems. The person who shot the silver-bullet coin could have been in the grassy knoll of general admission. I’m not willing to go back to the tape and evaluate the greatest mystery of WVU’s basketball season since, “Does Bobby Huggins go golfing at 3AM, too?”

I am lucky enough to attend a few UK home games every season and, without fail at every game, there is something that the crowd does that makes me cringe.

I am by no means a prude and am probably more crass than the average Kentuckian, but at every game I attend, I end up saying a little prayer that the cameras didn’t catch the UK fans saying “that”.

There is no doubt that our student section almost crosses the line into unacceptable “rude” behavior but there are not entirely at fault.

In fact, the most vitriolic and execrable language doesn’t come from the student section but from the general admission seats.

I don’t know how to solve the problem but I would love to figure out how to get our own house in order.

http://www.smokingmusket.com/2010/2/4/1292369/you-are-a-hypocrite#30254630 You will see that the founder of that WVU blog was convicted of hitting a player with a nerf ball in 2002. A culture of hate and vitriol for WVU that our worst fans have never matched up to at Rupp. However, when we won the NC in 96’ we had idiots setting fires, turning over police cars, etc. I pray if we win it all again, that our fans “act like they’ve been there”, and show some class, instead of burning Lexington down.

It’s dangerous and idiotic (Do the political correctness police still allow that word?). However, if you’re bothered by something the fans yell, just remember, it ain’t Sunday School. If you’ve never heard the word before, you can’t possibly be offended by it because you don’t know what it means. If you have heard the word before, you obviously survived it and will undoubtedly do so again.

If you’re talking about “bovine excrement” as I assumed, grow a thicker skin.

because by their standards we are less than desirable. In Roman and Greek history the Gladiators were cheered by the crowd as the emperor or conqueror watched the crowd’s reaction to give the “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” which held the fate of the gladiator who had just given their last measure of strength to entertain these crowds. In those days it was a life or death situation. The running of the bulls in Pamplona is considered to have had an off year if no one is gored to entertain the crowd. In Spain, Mexico and other latin american countries, bullfighting is done to satisfy the bloodlust of rabid fans. In Europe and other countries, soccer stadiums of thousands of people have been host to crowds that tore down the stadiums themselves in celebration or disgust as they rushed the fields.

Unfortunately this seems to have spilled over into collegiate athletics, and when mixed with alcohol, simply boils over into behavior that is more suited to the WWE or the futuristic “Running Man” game show. In the past when the crowds were 99.9% male, and the men considered it a fraternity that you could only belong to as a “sportsfan” it was never much of an issue. Now with families attending, and cameras in every hand, nationally televised events everything that is said and done is on public display, and the “public” is shocked. They shouldnt be. It has been a part of history, and it always will be. Personal morals and ethics will be all that ever control these situations, until the metal detectors get installed in Rupp Arena and every other venue in the country. And then they might as well put up cages and bring out Ric Flair to call the game.

There is little new in the behavior Parrish and you cite. It has been a part of sports for a very, very long time. In the past you’ve had:

+Beer dumped on Phillies outfielder at Wrigley
+NFL refs pelted with bootles thrown on field
+Numerous college football brawls (Miami-FIU, FSU-Florida, Clemson-USC)
+SEC refs get death threats for blown calls
+A college football player punch an opposing player and then attack the fans
+Countless fields and courts rushed by fans, the overwhelming majority of them without significant incident or morbidity

Just because this is traditional (albeit regrettable) behavior of sports fans, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t address it. It is not new, but it is a problem. It stems from the absence of civility in society and the unique importance of sports in society. Institutions should commit themselves to civility and decency. Additionally, they should encourage submission of anonymous reports of maleficence via text message or other means, have dedicated staff and technology for solely the surveillance of crowds, prepare to prosecute and ban unruly fans. That’d be a good start.

“The fans are real bad some places we play down South. They’re worse than anywhere at Mississippi State. The last time we played down there, they’d put a dead skunk under my bench. I know that boys will be boys. But must idiots be idiots?”
Rupp on opposing fans

Violence is of course unacceptable.

Woody Hayes..

Three comments:

1. I have to say, as a Cardinal fan I was pretty impressed with how Kentucky fans behaved during Louisville’s trip to Rupp Arena this year. It wasn’t perfect, but 99% of the fans were civil. I admit, I was nearly certain that it wouldn’t have been that way. I’m glad I was wrong.

2. WVU’s fan behavior (while not always limited to) always contains bad behavior from the student section. The WVU administration is going to need more than apologies if the trend continues. The networks won’t continue to televise WVU homes games if the FCC comes knocking due to the impropriety of the chants and behavior. Every team out there knows Rupp and Freedom Hall are “difficult places to play” and some would even call them a “hostile environment”. But they are meaning the fan’s energy (and numbers) are overwhelming and it’s tough to keep your team focused. WVU is making Morgantown a “hostile environment”, but from an ugly prison game kind of view. How long will it be until they install fences around the court like they have around the football field?

3. The “overrated” chant. This chant is about the dumbest chant I’ve ever heard. It’s like saying “No way our team can beat the real #1 team, so you must be ranked higher than you should be. We are definitely not that great of a team.” This ranks up there with storming the court when you’ve beaten an unranked team. (See Indiana vs. Minnesota)

at opposing players/teams are not so much giving the appearance of ignorance, as revealing the existence of it.

That is without debate the ignorant way to go about trying to throw the opponents off their game.

This is how to do it. Parker missed both free throws.

Yes, that is Eva.

It would be easy to not only identify and catch the guilty people. I would think it would not take many being ejected to stop or slow down the practice

the cafeterias served oranges the day of the Tennessee game. When Tenn came out on those #*&^ unicycles, the oranges rained. I can honestly say I didn’t participate in the orange throwing, but to this day the thought of a unicycle makes my blood boil.

a society problem………kids are taught to do what feels good to them at the time. We are taught by society now that others rights does not matter, its what feels good to us. We are taught that there is no responsibility that comes with rights…..so why should we expect any different in games?

This takes care of that oversight.

When Ray Mears was Tennessee’s coach and Stu Aberdeen was his assistant, their pregame show included some of the players riding unicycles and juggling orange and white basketballs. I have no idea if they did it everywhere or just in Lexington, but it was the most bush league thing I’ve ever seen. It actually makes Bruce Pearl look classy by comparison.

but my guess is that it was their major.

and found that only one player rode a unicycle and that was only at Vandy and Kentucky. The article didn’t mention basketball juggling, so I don’t know if I’m remembering that correctly or not. I’ll give credit to Ray Mears for two things: He was a heckuva showman and a helluva coach.

when duke played maryland at the comcast center when jj redick played at duke, they would fu jj, and talk bout how they had dated his younger sister would you carr that sportsmanship or just morons?

when Reddick was at Duke. The Tech students changed the pronunciation of JJ’s name. That was both funny and fitting.

Steve Kerr was palyed at Arizona in the late 80’s. His father had been kidnapped (and I believe killed) by some Middle East faction. ‘Zona was on the road (I don’t remember where), and the student body was chanting P… L …O, or some variation thereof.

Just horrific.

Even before the Pitt game started, you could tell how desperate WVU was to make their arena a scary place to play. I’m not saying I don’t blame the WVU fans—in fact, I blame them 100%—but I can see how they got the “scrappy little brother of the Big East” mentality. They feel the team lacks respect. And having Huggie Bear around probably doesn’t help matters, despite his best efforts.

Let’s face it…can classy and Bob Huggins possibly exist in the same area code?! He’s one of the greats coaching-wise, but he doesn’t quite have the whole role model thing down. Maybe in time he’ll help shape the culture there…but right now, WVU is running on emotional autopilot.

Was a chant that got started by the Rupp crowd at a UK/Florida game I had the opportunity to attend. Immature? Maybe. but I have to admit that once I was able to decipher what they were saying I did have a chuckle. :)