If I were the volleyball team, I would be ashamed.
I know what you’re thinking – I must be talking about the team’s inability to win in the Pac-10. But I’m not.
If I were a volleyball player, I would be ashamed of my fellow students as fans.
For those of you who don’t frequently visit the volleyball terrain, let me break it down for you. As far as I can tell, the audience runs as follows: 50 percent parents and family, 40 percent youth/high school volleyball teams and 10 percent student fans. Five percent of these fans are fellow student athletes, and the other five percent are regular, everyday students just like you and me.
That last five percent – the everyday students – is ruining the experience for the other 95 percent by filling Gill with the most ludicrous remarks, chants and inappropriate language I have heard outside of a frat party or football game.
These fans show up decked out in orange and black and look like they are going to support their team to victory. Then the game starts, and they lay the fattest rotten egg and stink up the entire coliseum. A portion of the student section this season has made it too embarrassing for some people to stand in the same section. I sit at the media table because I don’t want to be affiliated with such ignorance.
In the recent string of matches fans have chanted “steroids” at players, attempted to pick fights with opposing players after the match – on the court, nonetheless – and called black players “Lafonda” and “Darkness.” One fan even got off a “Kunta Kinte” blast before being told to shut up by some others. At least people have limits, right?
Shout-out to you socially inept losers. You are a disgrace to this university, its staff and fellow students when you go out there and chant racist remarks. Not to mention when you go out there and shout expletives at officials, call out a single player by insulting her mother’s weight or father’s sexual preference and accuse opposing coaches of molesting children and beating their wives.
Booing is one thing, but what you do is inexcusable. Does tearing down female volleyball players really make you feel better?
Call it a double standard and complain all you want, but the truth remains. I don’t care who you are, where you are from or how you feel about the opposition – you can’t shout menacing remarks at female athletes. This isn’t football. Fans aren’t shouting drunken, foul-mouthed tirades every few rows, so much that they’re just noise by the time the remarks get to the players.
It’s volleyball. It’s in Gill in front of a small crowd that is filled mostly with people under the age of 18 or over the age of 40 because it’s supposed to be a family event.
Besides, how much do you people even know about volleyball? Do you understand game strategy, each position’s role or even which players play which positions?
That’s what I thought. Most of you don’t understand the difference between a middle blocker and libero, a pass and a set or what the key to a Beaver victory even is.
Brittany Cahoon, Abby Windell and Taylor Studzinski are playing their asses off to make a solid run in the Pac-10 in their last year. Do you cheer for them? There are eight true freshmen who are trying to find their roles and understand the playbook while sharing minutes. Do you cheer for them?
No, because it’s too easy just to tear down the other team.
How about instead of calling out opposing players on their ethnic backgrounds, family status or sexual preferences, you try to learn the freaking rules and understand a splinter of game strategy so you can cheer for your own team.
The Beavers are struggling this season with passing the ball. How about a little encouragement instead of calling Oregon’s Sonja Newcombe a man? (By the way, Newcombe ended up dominating OSU, tallying 21 kills in just 35 attempts.) Or how about the time you spent an entire game calling Washington State’s Adetokunbo Faleti “Darkness.” That worked well by holding her to only 19 kills in 40 attempts. Obviously, expending your energy by tearing down other players is working.
Think about it like football if you need a comparison.
Do you really think that calling Dennis Dixon “Darkness” is going to affect how well he does? Or that chanting “steroids” at Jonathan Stewart will make perform worse?
No. But cheering Matt Moore after he throws his first touchdown of the game will get him fired up to go out there and do it again on the next drive.
A great atmosphere is created when fans cheer for home team success instead of hoping for the opposing team to fail. That is where Oregon State volleyball fans are – instead of cheering their team to victory, they have been cheering the other teams to failure. And if I were on the home team, that’s not an atmosphere where I would want to play.
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