While driving to work this morning, I heard on the radio that the bureaucrats at Penn State University have decided that the fans are too critical of the team’s performance so they will no longer tolerate the crowd booing the team.
I mean, what the fuck is up with this? A university, the bastion of tolerance and ideas, has decreed that booing the home team is unacceptable so each game will now begin with a credo being read over the public address system to “remind” students that booing is not allowed???
I have one thing to say to that: “Fucking bbbooooooooo!”
Seriously, though. This is asinine. Reminds me of a student teacher we had in my high school senior English class. She actually turned off the lights to quiet us down one time, like we were in kindergarten or something. It worked for about a half second, until we all burst out laughing. I suspect the reaction to this will be about the same.
This is not Penn State administration policy. This was a resolution passed by the University Faculty Senate–an entity with no authority over football–requesting people not to boo…or, rather, not to engage in “negative cheering.” (You have to wonder how many subcommittee meetings it took to decide on the term “negative cherring.”) It is not binding or enforceable at all.
The resolution will be read before every home football game. I’m sure the fans will respond appropriately–with a demonstration of “negative cheering.”
You know, if a home crowd boos its team, it usually means the team sucks. Or at least is sucking at the moment. Fans boo for a reason; they don’t do it for the fun of it or to make complete assholes of themselves. (Well, at least most of them don’t.)
Argh, stuff like this annoys me.
Sorta related-- I also hate the notion that you have to support the home team. Oh puh-lease.
It’s probably a good thing they’re not playing Arkansas (I don’t think) then, isn’t it? After all, when Boo Williams came out on the field they’d have to eject half the stadium.
Who wants to give me $100 million if I can, right now, accurately predict what the crowd does in a deafening fashion the microsecond that new policy is read over the loudspeakers?
Wow…I thought that was a joke. Good thing they don’t do that at my beloved Univ. of Alabama. If it weren’t for the booing, we wouldn’t have anything to say at all this year.
Woudln’t it be a better idea for the university administration to admoish the coaches to get their act together? Hey, if the Nittany Lions are playing better, befitting the appellation “Ivy Leaguers,” maybe the fans wouldn’t boo them in the first place! Treat the cause, not the symptoms!! :mad:
They areplaying like Ivy Leaguers, dougie. That’s the problem–they’re in the Big Ten. (I think you’re thinking of the University of Pennsylvania, which has nothing to do with Penn State.)
What the Faculty Senate has done, of course, is guaranteethe Nits get booed–probably even if they win, now.
God, did this story ever make me ashamed to be a Penn State alum.
But what I think everyone needs to remember is that the Penn State University Faculty Senate is just insane. They are the Dilbert management of academia. They are incredibly sensitive to criticism of the university, the Penn State name and above all themselves. Also, they are so left-wing Che Guevara wouldn’t have made it on the Board. Hence the terribly overdone PC term “negative cheering.” Hence, also, the massive Penn State PR offensive that pervades the whole of Central Pennsylvania.
Rarely have I seen a university administration so out of touch with reality (and believe me, I know–being currently a staff member of Oxford University, UK). I’ll bet the Faculty Senate has no idea of the backlash and will be stunned at the next home game when the football team is booed onto the field.
