BTI's Rants and Ramblings: It is time to move on!!

People will often say that you should never characterize an entire fanbase from what you hear on talk radio or read on message boards.  I think that is very true, because those who actually spend the time to call into a station or write on the boards like this one are typically your "super-fans", who are not accurate of what an "average" fan believes or their level of fanhood.  When it comes to the University of Kentucky, I have always felt that we have a larger number of "super-fans" than nearly any other school.  This has its positives, such as large attendance, national appeal, and the players having a greater love of the school.  But, it also leads to our negatives being amplified more than most other fanbases.  For instance, when we don't like a coach (Tubby), our fanbase makes videos, sends letters, and floods message boards with the worst kind of hate.  Most fanbases just don't show up to the games. I think this negative has really reared its ugly head again in this situation with the NCAA and Mark Emmert.  Certainly, there is reason to be upset how the Enes Kanter situation turned out.  I will never argue the UK fanbase should not have been angry about what happened.  But, what I have never been able to wrap my head around is when that anger literally has an effect on a person's life.  So much so that some would send Emmert death threats on his facebook page.  So much so that people on this site still use their time to complain in the comments section of posts that have NOTHING to do with Kanter.  So much so that people have attempted to get together protests in Indianapolis.  It's one thing for KSR and IC2 to send Drew Franklin to Indy for a semi-humorous attempt at getting into the NCAA.  It's another where people actually think a legit protest is necessary. Look, protests are needed for injustices in SOCIETY.  Things like unjust wars, taxes, human rights, etc.  They are not needed for COLLEGE BASKETBALL ELIGIBILITY.  That is, in my mind, what is called losing complete touch with what is important in life.  Whether or not Enes Kanter is allowed to play for UK should not actually have an effect on your life.  If Kanter wanted to go to Indy and protest his heart out, I can understand that.  When a guy from Owensboro thinks he should do the same thing, it makes me wonder if he taking a college basketball team a little too seriously.  And I can already tell you how this will go in the comments section.  What I just wrote will not appear to be popular at all.  But, remember that the HUGE MAJORITY of people will never write on a message board or call into a radio station.  The people who will write on this board and others are the "super-fans" and it seems to me the "super-fans" have lost complete sense of just how important this ruling was.  It certainly hurts the University of Kentucky basketball team.  It certainly hurts the life of Enes Kanter slightly.  It does not hurt your life. The fact that the NCAA was forced to shut down its facebook page is an embarrassment.  It's an embarrassment to the people who actually made the threats.  But most of all, it's an embarrassment to "average" UK fans like me, who now have to also deal with the image that we are just some inbred idiots who have nothing better to do than make cowardly threats at an NCAA President.  We are now 2 weeks removed from the final decision on Kanter.  In that time, most people have gone to work 10 days, maybe taken their kids to basketball practice a couple times, watched 4 UK basketball games, gone to church a couple times, and had some real fun more times than you can count.  A select few have immersed their lives in something not important in the grand scheme.  Please, for the sake of all us "average" UK fans, let it go.