By Austin Cooper
Louisville residents and students alike love our University of Louisville sports teams. During sporting events, this intense love manifests itself as an adoring and supportive fan section that will cheer the team on to victory. Sometimes, however, the fans’ passions manifest themselves in darker and stranger ways than one might expect of a sane person. Having been seated everywhere from the top of the football stadium to front court at the new KFC Yum! Center, I have witnessed all manners of appropriate and inappropriate fan behavior. For the upcoming basketball season, I hope to guide both new and returning fans in the ways of the sixth man.
Before tipoff, and even before the first pre-game beer, fans need to make sure to dress appropriately. Red and black Louisville gear is definitely appropriate. But when the team really needs to win, more drastic attire may be in order. The ideal game outfit should be supportive, imaginative, and equal parts distracting and confusing. The longer it takes the other team to figure out why a grown man is wearing a Thomas the Tank Engine sweater, the less time they’ll spend playing defense. Easy points for our team! Short shorts, v-neck shirts, arm floaties, v-neck pants, unicorn horns, cowboy hats and barrels are all excellent when it comes to breaking the focus of a free throw shooter.
A lot of students will display poor sportsmanship and engage in trash talking. This is an atrocious practice, because ball players are real people with real feelings and they can get hurt. Fans’ comments should either be polite suggestions or insightful comments that benefit the players. An unruly fan may scream at a player that they suck, which is disgraceful for all parties involved. A more civilized fan might instead reassure the opposing player that, despite their haphazard shooting, their team was already going to lose, so it doesn’t matter anyway. Encouraging a player to get bent or to perform acts that are morally questionable and biologically impossible are not the best ways to detract from their performance, nor are they appropriate. A better way to distract them is through interpretive dance and mispronouncing their names, though it takes some creativity to make the more unusual, multi-syllable names rhyme with something embarrassing.
It is vitally important for fans to respond to the game. After dunks, 3-pointers or stuffs, fans absolutely need to go wild. It serves as a reward for our player and also makes it more humiliating for the other team, and could cause them to be more timid, as well they should. When the other team makes mistakes though, such as airballing a shot or missing free throws, it is equally important to let them know that their misdeed was appreciated. Any attention is good attention for the players, so definitely make sure to be vocal about their mishaps and misfortunes. Additionally, nothing reduces the stress of drinking and partying with thousands of classmates like collectively reveling in another’s misfortune.
The most important lessons about fan behavior are never take responsibility for your actions and always contain the passion to the game. When in a crowd, your words blend into the collective cheering, so they can be lost in the shuffle. Beware the dangers of maintaining the mob mentality in situations other than sports games, as it can cause a lot of trouble in class, the bank, the zoo, everywhere. Also, make sure to change out of any game attire after the game. Chest paint just doesn’t go over as well in the library.
