Ethics of Fandom
As seen in the Oregon Daily Emerald!
The start of this article is a lot like an earlier update I made here about football - forgive me, but I was facing a deadline and figured that plagiarizing from myself made a lot more sense than being creative.
College football is an oddly pagan experience. Just about every Saturday, tens of thousands of people fill up a giant stadium for several hours in order to watch two groups of strong men beat one another up to gain possession of a ball that is ostensibly made of a pig’s skin. On the sidelines, women dance suggestively, people prance around in animal costumes, and hundreds of musicians bang on drums and blow horns in support of the whole affair.
Oh, how I love it!
More and more it seems as if football is one of our last unifying cultural institutions. Sure, we’ve got movies, TV, and religion, but nothing gets people out of their houses and into the rain and cold like a good game of football. For proof, all you have to do is drive down I-5 on a Saturday. Those hundreds of cars aren’t full of people going to church or to see “Madagascar 2” – they’re going to jostle into an uncomfortable seat, eat expensive food, and take part in the common goal of yelling until their team wins.
As a member of the Oregon Marching Band, I’ve been to every home game for the past two seasons, and if I’ve learned anything, it’s that we have some very devoted fans in the student section; devoted, that is, to the art of drinking. Don’t get me wrong: the majority of the fans I see in the student section are really dedicated to the game and support of the team, and whether they’re drunk at the time or not is of little importance. However, I’ve noticed a few things happening during the football games that I consider unacceptable when compared to the general drunken debauchery of an Oregon home game.
I think that the Pac-10 has some of the worst refs in the country. In both football and basketball I’ve routinely watched them make ludicrous and biased calls, time and again, and I’ve never hesitated to shout my opinions about their officiating ability at them in the wake of these errors. I consider it “deconstructive criticism”. But on the rare occasion that they make a call against my team that is justified, I sit on my hands, because for once they’re actually doing their jobs right. This is why I’m dismayed to hear the crowd booing refs for making legitimate calls against the Ducks – no team plays perfectly, so don’t act like we do.
I suppose I can understand the overzealous booing of the referees; after all, we’re eager to support our team. But if that’s the case, I can’t understand why the isles start to fill with departing fans once it becomes clear that the game is, for all intents and purposes, over. Supporting your team is about being there for them until the end, win or lose, rain or shine. That’s what makes the game exciting: knowing that, should we lose, you will face an embarrassing walk past the other team’s jubilant fans, but that, if we win, the subsequent gloating will be all the sweeter for your dedication.
What is most appalling and unacceptable, though, is when I see our fans booing our team for fumbles or poorly executed plays. If you want to boo the refs unilaterally, great. If you want to leave early, there’s nothing stopping you. But if you see your own team falter on the field and start booing them for it in the time that they most need your support, you need to seriously reconsider your motives for going to the football game in the first place. To boo your own team in their home stadium just doesn’t make you look like a two-faced idiot, it makes all of us look like two-faced idiots.
So yes, football is paganistic. But that’s no reason to be a savage.
The start of this article is a lot like an earlier update I made here about football - forgive me, but I was facing a deadline and figured that plagiarizing from myself made a lot more sense than being creative.
College football is an oddly pagan experience. Just about every Saturday, tens of thousands of people fill up a giant stadium for several hours in order to watch two groups of strong men beat one another up to gain possession of a ball that is ostensibly made of a pig’s skin. On the sidelines, women dance suggestively, people prance around in animal costumes, and hundreds of musicians bang on drums and blow horns in support of the whole affair.
Oh, how I love it!
More and more it seems as if football is one of our last unifying cultural institutions. Sure, we’ve got movies, TV, and religion, but nothing gets people out of their houses and into the rain and cold like a good game of football. For proof, all you have to do is drive down I-5 on a Saturday. Those hundreds of cars aren’t full of people going to church or to see “Madagascar 2” – they’re going to jostle into an uncomfortable seat, eat expensive food, and take part in the common goal of yelling until their team wins.
As a member of the Oregon Marching Band, I’ve been to every home game for the past two seasons, and if I’ve learned anything, it’s that we have some very devoted fans in the student section; devoted, that is, to the art of drinking. Don’t get me wrong: the majority of the fans I see in the student section are really dedicated to the game and support of the team, and whether they’re drunk at the time or not is of little importance. However, I’ve noticed a few things happening during the football games that I consider unacceptable when compared to the general drunken debauchery of an Oregon home game.
I think that the Pac-10 has some of the worst refs in the country. In both football and basketball I’ve routinely watched them make ludicrous and biased calls, time and again, and I’ve never hesitated to shout my opinions about their officiating ability at them in the wake of these errors. I consider it “deconstructive criticism”. But on the rare occasion that they make a call against my team that is justified, I sit on my hands, because for once they’re actually doing their jobs right. This is why I’m dismayed to hear the crowd booing refs for making legitimate calls against the Ducks – no team plays perfectly, so don’t act like we do.
I suppose I can understand the overzealous booing of the referees; after all, we’re eager to support our team. But if that’s the case, I can’t understand why the isles start to fill with departing fans once it becomes clear that the game is, for all intents and purposes, over. Supporting your team is about being there for them until the end, win or lose, rain or shine. That’s what makes the game exciting: knowing that, should we lose, you will face an embarrassing walk past the other team’s jubilant fans, but that, if we win, the subsequent gloating will be all the sweeter for your dedication.
What is most appalling and unacceptable, though, is when I see our fans booing our team for fumbles or poorly executed plays. If you want to boo the refs unilaterally, great. If you want to leave early, there’s nothing stopping you. But if you see your own team falter on the field and start booing them for it in the time that they most need your support, you need to seriously reconsider your motives for going to the football game in the first place. To boo your own team in their home stadium just doesn’t make you look like a two-faced idiot, it makes all of us look like two-faced idiots.
So yes, football is paganistic. But that’s no reason to be a savage.