1. Act like you've been there
2. This is the proper way to disrupt the visiting team:
Posted on 09/15/2007 4:53:28 AM PDT by Kaslin
It pays to be on the media’s approved victims list.
After Don Imus made his “ho” comment about the Rutgers women’s basketball team on April 4, the media went into a feeding frenzy. In the first week after the story broke, the three major networks aired a total of 19 segments. On cable, CNN had 60, with Fox News at 21 and MSNBC at 13.
The New York Times ran 12 articles, USA Today and The Washington Post each ran nine, and Newark, New Jersey’s Star-Ledger ran 11.
But after the Sept. 7 Navy-Rutgers football game, at which Rutgers fans crudely and obscenely abused the visiting Midshipmen players, fans and families, the media were nearly silent.
Star-Ledger columnist Mark DiLonno, a Rutgers grad and Navy veteran, broke the story on September 11 in a first-rate smackdown. He reminded the spoiled, face-painted kids in the stands that young men and women their age were risking their lives in the Navy and other services to defend their freedom. He also wondered why colleges were increasingly allowing such incivility to visiting teams.
As DiLonno reports it, here’s how some fans reacted when Navy kick returner Reggie Campbell got up limping after being tackled:
‘“You got f--ed up. You got f--ed up. You got f-ed-up,’ they chanted.
“Reggie Campbell is a senior. After graduation in June he has a five-year commitment to the American military, which, like it or not, is at war….
“Navy was booed and peppered with ‘You suck!’ chants when they stepped on the field for both halves. Toward the end of the second half, Rutgers students in the new bleacher section began to serenade the adjacent section of Navy fans and uniformed Midshipmen.
“‘F-- you, Navy. F--you, Navy. F-- you, Navy.’”
On Tuesday, Rutgers President Richard McCormick apologized to Naval Academy officials in a letter in which he said, “No student-athlete should ever be subject to profane language directed at them from the crowd, and certainly not the young men of the Naval Academy who have made a commitment to serve our nation in a time of war.”
Meanwhile, Rutgers athletic director Robert Mulcahy and Greg Blimling, vice president of student affairs, wrote an open letter saying the outbursts were “undignified, disrespectful and unacceptable.”
So how have the media responded? On Sept. 12, the Washington Post, UPI and AP ran less than 300 words each on the Rutgers officials’ apology. The New York Times, meanwhile, with Rutgers in its backyard, referred to the incident in the sixth paragraph of a Sept. 14 column by Harvey Araton about the overall Rutgers football program. The networks have ignored the incident completely.
In contrast, the media were all over the Imus incident from the beginning. When Imus apologized, they smelled blood in the water, and paid even more attention to the story.
Surely the outrageous behavior by the Rutgers fans should have elicited a national reaction and comparison to the Imus sacking, but the media’s collective yawn told the public: No big deal.
It might still be a smart PR move for the widely-publicized Rutgers women’s basketball team, which netted tremendous sympathy over Imus, to issue a press release lamenting the behavior of their school’s football fans. It could run along the lines of, “We know how it feels to be abused. …”
If nothing else, they might wind up on Oprah again.
This bunch of spoiled brats and media darlings need to play a real football team, so they would learn a little humility. I suggest LSU or USC. They are big frogs in a tiny pond, and their actions show poor breeding.
Rutckas is in Noo Joisey. Whaddaya want!?
Rutgers Fans’ Abuse of Navy Players Elicits Media Yawn...
because it was the Navy.....
maybe they should have called them ~ nappy headed!!!
If any silver lining can be hoped for when the savages visit our shores it will that the very first to feel the sharp edge of their hatchets on their worthless necks will be liberals who infest our institutions of higher learning.
Of course when this happens we know the libs will be screaming/demanding the military save them and whining it took to long for them to get there.
The little punks who apparently infest Rutgers are emblematic of the total, top to bottom corruption of the state of NJ, a percolating toxic waste dump which makes Louisiana look like an Arcadian heaven on earth. Just consider some of the NJ’s more recent, corrupt political dirtballs, known to outside observers; Old pump and dump Corzlime, [in such decline that he has to buy his babes and even then they don’t stay bought] Lousenberger, the senile gungrabber, runtman, show me the money Toricelli, [why Bobbie we hardly knew ye], he being a ‘very close friend’ of Governor McGreevey, the queen of the stalls [and the YMCA showers], the New Jersey Supreme Court, a pack of Democrat shills who always do what they are told, and the absolutely positively totally brain dead Christie Whitman, aka Governor sock puppet. And for everyone of these there are twenty state and local political crooks taking bribes, getting indicted and/or sitting in jail. Not a good place. Scumbag central, in fact.
The Rutgers students have to keep the intensity up no matter if the opponent is from the University of our Sacred Mother Friggin Theresa. They can be nice after the football season is over. This is about a football game and like it or not Navy was the opponent.
I don’t like what happened off the field at Virginia Tech either, but it wasn’t football and I’m sure not gonna give those conference-hoppin-traitor-dumbasses down in Blacksburg a break.
Intensity? That seems like a mealy-mouthed way to put it.
What evidence is there that the Rutgers fans treated the Navy team any worse than the team they played the week before? Vulgar taunts by the home team’s fans to the opposing team are not news. Nothing that has been reported indicates that they were saying anything specifically anti-military, or physically attacking the players. If Rutgers fans were yelling the same thing at Maryland, no one would care.
You read see this. Navy, Rutgers’, Don Imus, and the New York Times.
I imagine that this treatment was not reserved only for the visiting Midshipmen. It is probably indicative of the treatment of any opponent. Sadly, that doesn’t make Rutgers unique.
It is wrong to treat opponents this way, whether it is how Rutgers treats Navy or how Florida treats Tennessee or how USC treats UCLA or how Ohio State treats Michigan or... you see my point.
The goal of making the home field a “tough place to play” often crosses the line from supporting the home team to abusing the visiting team. It’s a hard thing to stop, regardless of the opponent.
If Rutgers fans/students saved this treatment for the service academies, I would be a lot more concerned about it. But if they treat all visitors like this (and I imagine that now they have won a few ballgames this decade, they probably do), I think the problem is simply a lack of respect (and class) for any visiting team, not just Navy. Classless fans are everywhere, and you can’t make them act classy for a single game, then advocate the poor behavior in later games.
Yes, there are classless fans everywhere. Here is a letter I sent to the Chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (hereinafter in my mind the University of No Class Goobers). I never received a response.
Ms. Sullivan,
I, as well as large number of other parents attended the Lafayette/UNC-G mens’ soccer game this past Sunday. I have to say that it was an exciting game. However, over many, many years of attending outdoor competitive sporting events, I have never, ever been ‘treated’ to a display of such continued and absolute classless and distasteful behavior as I did from your student “fans”.
For some reason, someone in your organization found it appropriate to locate your student section (”Blue Zone”?) directly behind the section designated for the visiting team’s fans. I can see how there really may not have been much anaylsis of that decision, and, in a normal world, probably seemed fine. Your student “fans” are very far from normal. It was a very bad decision, as your so-called student fans desperately need a lesson in basic civil behavior and social respect.
We were treated to obscenity after obscenity, directed solely at us, simply for being the visiting team’s fans. Furthermore, in one instance, when one of our players went down with what appeared to be a slight groin pull (directly in front of our section and on our side of the field) your excellent and class-filled student fans shouted all sorts of hateful comments - this was my favorite - “get him off the field, we don’t want anyone like that reproducing anyway”.....the player happened to be black. Nice...... Finally, as the game ended in a 1-1 tie, your “wonderful students” (I estimate about 25 strong) began showering our section (mostly parents of athletes) with water bottles and other debris, and then shouted for us all to get “the hell” out of “their stadium”. Your security personnel did nothing.
I guess that sort of classlessness is typical at UNC-Greensboro. You have little to be proud of in that regard.
This email would be volumous in length would I take the time to list each and every occurrence of the utter hate-filled and classless behavior of your “students”, but I feel it would be a complete waste of my time. You have some serious problems to address. I hope you see fit to investigate these allegations further and actually take some action so as to avoid any future displays of this type that only very badly tarnish your university. Your fans represent your institution rather poorly.
Regards,
XXXXXXXXXXX
I am so sorry, here’s all the best mealy-mouthed wishes that you do get to the bottom of things soon. Fair winds and following seas, Tupac.
At that point, the little monsters should have been arrested. Vulgar taunting is one thing; throwing objects is another. (Personally, I would have favored ejecting them from the stadium long before then, but that is just me.)
Dungaree Liberty..
Good letter. Next time, send it to the newspapers as well. Colleges won't ever admit to a problem until the community is aware of it.
A few years ago, Tennessee football fans attending the game at Florida were, year after year, seated in front of the student section, where they were spit on, hit by debris, and generally harassed. Fans were physically roughed up within clear view of security personnel. We're not talking teenaged fans. Middle aged women were subjected to the taunts, shoves, spitting, bottle throwing, etc., and a mob rule was in place in the stands and leaving the stadium.
Years of complaints went unheeded until UT Athletic Director Doug Dickey sent a letter to the Fla AD telling him that unless Fla made some changes and enforced security for UT fans, he would not return to the Swamp and would cancel the game. The prospect of losing 95,000 ticket sales and the scandal that would be associated with a public review of safety at UF was apparently enough to cause UF to beef up security and relocate the visitors' seats so that they were not sitting in front of students. Bottom line is that when they were forced to react, they found all kinds of things they could do to make the game safer for the fans.
I don't resent anyone being a fan of their team, and I don't understand people who hate opposing teams or fans. We're all there to have fun.
1. Act like you've been there
2. This is the proper way to disrupt the visiting team:
Like I said, the security personnel did nothing. Quite frankly, these students (and yes, they actually were students) more than revealed their collective intelligence during the game with what the said and shouted.
I am actually from NC (was there to see my nephew play) and the saying goes around here: If you cannot go to college, you should go to UNC-G. Funny, I knew many years ago a girl that attended and graduated from there. She was nice, decent, and had a good intellect. She told me that the motto at UNC-G is - “Where the women are women and the men are too.” Hehe, I’ll never forget that one.
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