Home court advantage is a force to be reckoned with in college basketball, especially when a team has fans as passionate and as rowdy as West Virginia’s. It’s probably one of the reasons why the Mountaineers were undefeated at home coming into the game today and why they only lost one home game last season. There’s nothing wrong with taking advantage of playing at home, but there is a difference between cheers that distract the visiting team and cheers that target the visiting team in a cheap, offensive way. Some of the Mountaineers’ cheers tonight fell into the later category.
I can’t, in good conscience, take real issue with the “Sapp is crap” cheer. It’s hard to take it seriously when the player in question nails the game-winning three with 6 seconds left to round out a 15-point night. But I will say this: is that really the best you can do? “Sapp is crap?” Really?
However, I was bothered by the second, blatantly homophobic cheer picked up by ESPN’s cameras: “Roy likes boys.” I know that it’s not uncommon for people to thoughtlessly toss around homophobic slurs in conversation. But for an entire student section to shout something like “Roy likes boys” displays a lack of class beyond anything I’ve seen at a college basketball game. And it doesn’t even rhyme.
Admittedly, Georgetown students took some flack for the “Where’s my laptop?” cheer at the UConn game (I thought the cheer was dumb but not offensive, for the record) and the sheets that Hoya Blue makes for the student section do sound like they were written by catty middle schoolers. But nothing the Georgetown student section has done is as offensive as “Roy likes boys.” At least, in the end, the good guys came out on top.
Update: Tim Fernholz just reminded me of a similar incident at Georgetown two years ago regarding a sign reading “RIDICULOUSLY GAY JJ”, referring to Duke player JJ Redick.
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January 27th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
For the record, I’d like to point out that the “Redickulously Gay JJ” sign was NOT beind held up by a Georgetown student, or at the very least, not one sitting in the student section. I have personally seen at least one instance of the GU Athletic Department taking away a sign that may have been considered offensive (”Dixon has ED,” in reference to Pitt head coach Jamie Dixon).
Having been to more than a few different college basketball venues, I can say with confidence that the Hoya student section, with the inevitable but relatively few exceptions, is one of the classier and least vulgar or tasteless ones. And anyone who thinks “Where’s My Laptop” isn’t classy doesn’t understand what the term means.
January 27th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Much ado about nothing.
January 27th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Wow you have to be kidding me. Would a homosexual be offended at “Roy Likes Boys” I mean come on. I think not. Its as harmless as “Sapp is Crap”. This is why people feel they always have to be politically correct. This was stupid to even mention! Thought it was going to be Don Imus worthly. Wow what a worthless read!
January 28th, 2008 at 7:22 am
Are we so thin-skinned that we have to buy into that stupid notion that we have to watch every word we say because it might “offend” someone? It’s a sporting event and such things are to be expected. Why not focus on something of true consequence? Worrying about cheers at a basketball game is beyond ludicrous.
January 28th, 2008 at 8:06 am
Yes, homophobic cheers are wrong. I think we should arrest the Georgetown fan who made the “Brokeback Mountaineers” sign at last years game. Better yet, lets also throw the book at the Verizon Center camera man and the videoboard operator who displayed it for all of Verizon Center to see. Of course, that’s all in good fun and as lame as “Roy likes boys”. The only difference is its not funny when you are on the receiving end of a childish taunt. As a NoVa resident and WVU alum, I never knew that Georgetown was constructed of glass? Maybe you shouldn’t be throwing rocks….
Best of luck,
Chris
January 28th, 2008 at 8:45 am
“Sapp is crap” is fair game, and just makes it sweeter when Sapp burned WV with the three. “Where’s my laptop?” is also fair game, and we don’t lose any class by using it. You take all the fun out it if you eliminate cheers like that.
The cheers about Roy and JJ, however, should not be used.
But what I want to know is, what rhymes with Hansbrough? How about “Duke is Puke!”
February 8th, 2008 at 1:02 am
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