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[Colloquy Moderator]

Incivility at sporting events is as old as blood-boiling collegiate rivalries, and perhaps just as inevitable. Still, some college officials, tired of plugging their ears, are trying to promote more tasteful cheering -- a delicate task in an era when students believe they have a right to say what they please while supporting the home team. Some efforts seek to stifle profanity through persuasion; other efforts are more coercive. What are the best ways for colleges to deal with the problem? Are colleges on a fool's errand when they try to stem boorish behavior? Or is it important for colleges to take a stand on the issue, however ineffective they may be, as part of their educational mission? Read more ...

[Molly Mfume, Prof. Emeritus]

Well surprise, surprise, surprise.  After all of these years of the radical left-wing educational lobby telling our kids they have rights and everyone should kiss their royal behind, this is what we get.  What says it all is the following text from the article:

"students believe they have a right to say what they please..."

Instead of teaching civility, respect, and decency, you taught self-esteem (where none was warranted), tolerance (where none was deserved) and rights (where none was earned). And now, only now, do you see this might lead to a problem.  How stupid.

The generation of the 60s produced this foul mouthed group of undisciplined kids.  You people on the left got exactly what you wanted.

enjoy...

[Rod]

Hooray for Mfume! I especially liked the following:

"Instead of teaching civility, respect, and decency, you taught self-esteem (where none was warranted), tolerance (where none was deserved) and rights (where none was earned). And now, only now, do you see this might lead to a problem. How stupid."

Very nicely done.

[Yay for Molly...]

Yes, yes. Yay for Molly for posting yet another sweeping generaliztion about those conspiring left-wing radicals. Good god, how does she pinpoint the causes with such acute insight? Such LOGIC and RATIONALE, and most of all, emotionally charged warrant. I can't jerk my knee up fast enough before Molly's figured out that the left wing radicals are to blame for the ill-mannerisms of our spoiled youth, the spiraling economy, war in Iraq...you name the ill, Molly's got the left wing radical agenda to retrofit it. And all you left wingers know who you are: yer either fer us or agin' us. Mollymollymollymollymollymollyleftwingleftwingleftwingleftwing--ohtheignorantblissoflivinginaworldofsucheasy("stupid")binaries. Thre's no such person as Molly Mfume.

[Mark Soskin, Assoc.Prof., UCF]

Associating incivility by rabid college sport fans with 60s reaction to student powerlessness is the ultimate of non-sequiturs.  The new breed of students and alums who harrass visiting teams (and their traveling fans) are primarily apolitical or conservatives.  If there's any stereotype that applies, it is frat boys, sports bar, party-all-weekend types -- the very ones that the 60s rebels condemned the most.  The safety of anonymous crowds of verbal bullies harks back to the Buffalo Springfield's derisive line about crowds who mindlessly chant "Hooray for our side."

[Hanie Cole III/East Carolina U]

If the fans will not tone down their language remove them from stadium. Coaches can also talk about bad behavior but then the coaches must exhibit good behavior also. Young kids shall be able to attend games with being showered with curse words. The whole definition of behavior comes back to can kids attend games in a wholesome atmosphere. Administrators and coaches need to step up and stop being scred of their own shadow and deal with the borish spectators.

[Lee]

The author of "Yay for Molly" suggests that Molly doesn't exist. I don't know if that is true, but he/she does attack "Molly" personally and he/she sarcastically dismisses "Molly's" proposition that societal permissiveness has led to a generation of licentious and undisciplined college students. Yet, he/she offers nothing to explain why such behavior has gotten worse.

I was taught that when an debate opponent engages in personal attacks, rather than addressing the issues at hand, that opponent has admitted defeat.

[Lee me alone]

"I was taught that when an debate opponent engages in personal attacks, rather than addressing the issues at hand, that opponent has admitted defeat."

Oh god...I...I, that is....I mean. Oh Molly, forgive me! Forgive me my unscrupulously ad hominem attack offered without an alternative explanation for why fans say nasty things to their opponents other than that they could only have been raised by sixties left wing radicals! Oh, it all makes sense to me now. "How stupid" of me, as Molly would analytically concur. "You people on the left got exactly what you wanted," as Molly has shown without offering a shred of evidence herself. Thank you, Lee, for showing me that truth derives from an absence of alternatives. I...I...I am defeated. I admit defeat. It is, it really is nothing but a bunch of left wing radicals and their radicands leaning drunkenly over the center field bleacher and belching to the opposing outfielder that they slept with that opposing center fielder's sister the night before. Only a left wing radical agenda could account for such unseemly behavior. Oh, Lee, Lee! Press on. Press on.

[Lee]

Lee,

"Yay for Molly" is just Bloom, the resident embittered know-it-all academic who bullies and whines his insults at anyone who cares to show up.  He's obviously got some sort of problem that makes him incapable of constructive discourse.  

He's also infatuated with some woman named Mary, I think.

[Lee]

"Yay for Molly" is just Bloom, the resident embittered know-it-all academic who bullies and whines his insults at anyone who cares to show up. He's obviously got some sort of problem that makes him incapable of constructive discourse."

It's my agenda of left-winged-foul-mouthedness. You radical reactionary right wingin' disenfranchised victims of affirmative action who think the past is past and doesn't matter a jot (unless, of course, it has to do with foul-mouthed fans) didn't think you'd have the entire Colloquy to your bloody selves, did you? I ain't gonna provide facts if you ain't. And don't you dare call me an "academic." I hate them  more than anything else, except for poseurs who use the term "discourse."

I do so love the Marys McGory and McGowan. They post in haste and all seriousness and leave my sides splitting. Ah, Mar-EE.

[Molly Mfume]

There most certainly is a Molly Mfume.  At least I identify myself instead of hiding behind some anonymous, cute label.

I notice that you don't refute any of my claims about these foul-mouthed children.  Instead, you fall back on the tactics ALWAYS used by the radical left when they have no intelligent arguments to make:  you personally attack the person you disagree with.

Let's look at this logically instead of emotionally.  These children learned that this type of behavior was their "right".  People don't grow up with an innate notion of rights; they are taught them by someone.  There are only two groups of people who would be teaching these children their rights: parents or the public school system.  (Private schools---in particular, catholic schools---do not teach their students that they have a right to say whatever they want and everyone else has to take it.)  If these foul-mouthed kids are say 20 or 21, then they were born in the early eighties---when many of the 60's generation were in their prime child-bearing years.  Moreover, they were educated by teachers many of whom grew up in the 60s.  The correlation is crystal clear to anyone who doesn't have a left-wing agenda.

In the future it would be appreciated if

1.  when you attack someone you don't hide behind a cute nomenclature

2.  you use logic---instead of emotional, personal attacks---to make your argument.

By following the above two guidelines you will retain some sense of credibility...

[Joseph Davidson / Consultant]

The solution is simple.  Before the game, the home coach should step out on the court/field and announce that if the fans do not behave in a sportsmanlike manner, s/he will forfeit the game.

This will solve the problem after one or two  forfeitures.

This of course will not be done because college sports are a business, not a sport competition.  The fans know this and behave as if they are at a professional (exhibition) wrestling event rather than a sports competition.

[Scott]

just call technical fouls on the spectators. They can be called on the coaches and players, why not the crowd? Once a group of rabid fans are deamed responsible for their team's loss, it would be amazing how comportment would change.

[MollyMollyMolly]

I have only praise for our Molly. Didn't I praise you for your acute insight, your analytical acumen? Of course. I agreed, the foul-mouthedness of college fans is a DIRECT result of the left wing radical FRINGE, who've invaded our colleges and stolen the god-given rights of White males to recieve the privileged education of their grandparents from the forties. Who could deny this? The facts are plain, though you've yet to lay any of them out, using only smoky, inferential, intuitive feelings of questionable causation to support your case--as if conservatives didn't go to college in the sixties and if they did then don't send their kids to college, or if they do, then it's only those kids of right wing reactionary conservatives who sit quietly during games tsk-tsking the abominable behavior of the left wing scions. I praise your inestimable deductive ability to transmute premises to conclusions:

Left wing radicals went to college in the sixties; college sports fans today are ruder than in the past. Therefore, all rude college sports fans are the children of left wing radicals.

Oh, and all public school teachers are left wing radicals, too, er, I mean, are the parents of those kids. Nonono, are affirmative action cronies. That is, I mean to say....are not catholic either, but wait...no. That is....Well, dammit, I know what I see! Besides, everybody knows that we live in a world consisting solely of either left wing fringe nuts or right wing reactionary conservatives. I'm with you, Molly. I never meant to impugn your associative powers. Except that...well... I say some pretty raspy things at football games, and my parents voted for Nixon. Ah, geez, but there I go again, getting all ad hominem on your argument.

As I praised you for earlier, your logic is tactfully employed, undeniably perfect. No problematic associations whatsoever. It flows as fluidly, as naturally, as any reflexive bodily movement. Why, it oughta be a universal example in Critical Thinking courses. I'm just so jealous that I didn't come up with such a quick, uncomplicated, clear answer to the problem of foul-mouthed fans.

Oh, and by the way, MollyMolly, in the future, it would be appreciated if:
 
1. when you attack someone you don't hide behind a cute nomenclature

2. you use logic---instead of emotional, personal attacks---to make your argument.

[Will Glascoff / ECU]

My senior year of college at UNC-Chapel Hill, I was lucky enough to have third row tickets to the UNC-Duke basketball game.  We chanted and jeered at some of the Duke players, mostly Dahntay Jones and Shelden Williams.  The chants were crude and offensive.  However, it really fit the mood and atmosphere of the game.  

When UNC faced NC State this year, the crowd chanted "STD" at Rashad McCants when he was shooting.  Visually, you could see it hit him, much moreso than any generic "Hey, Rashad, you suck". While he played well that game, seeing the armor of the player get broken gives incentive to fans to chant.  Even at that UNC-Duke game, the crowd made fun of Michael Thompson, asking him who he is, given he never played much.  He would chuckle at it.  Seeing the players acknowledge your chant makes it worthwhile.

I don't doubt something must be done to clean up the language or the message.  Insulting the other team is not an essesntial part of the game, or even the fan experience.  It just adds a nice part.  Clean shots are preferable to low blows, but I've seen the fans cause player reactions.  That just feeds the beast.

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