Crossing the Line

**Even as a girl Purdue graduate, I can appreciate this** Alcohol makes normal people do stupid things. Alcohol makes sports fans do even stupider things.My college roommate likes to tell the story about her very favorite game at Rupp. Beside her sat a man in a ballcap with a stuffed wildcat attached to it, who (obviously inebriated) spent the entire game saying "angry kittie", his hand making a swiping motion into the air each time. I'll say it again: booze + passion=someone getting punched, shot, or pregnant. Nowhere is this more apparent than in college basketball arenas across the country. I'm with Parrish on this one. All these minor incidences during games are about to come to a head ala Ron Artest and there might not be anything that college officials can do to stop it. I'm not on the "society is going to hell" bandwagon and I wasn't around thirty years ago to see how fans acted then, but it's not hard to see that things are getting worse. Consider this dangerous recipe: 1. A large collection of young people (men in the majority) who feel very strongly about a particular subject, namely that their team is the best and the other team isn't. 2. 18 year old men who are frustrated, tired, and prideful. They aren't being paid millions of dollars to put up with the abuse (unlike Artest by the way) and they have no way to defend themselves without throwing away their futures. Things are going to boil over at some point.   We can all agree that throwing things on the court (see: West Virginia) is over the line. But the provocation that comes with some of the chanting and yelling of fans is just as much of an issue. Look, me lecturing other people on abusive language at sporting events is like a Gary Busey lecture on not being nuts.And I think chants like "Karen Sypher" and "Walsh is gay" are funny and part of the nature of the game. But let's not be surprised when someone gets hit for dissing a player's mamma or girlfriend or hairdo. Everyone remembers the Steve Kerr incident at Arizona with the PLO chant coming from the ASU fans. Everyone would remember it more if Steve Kerr had, instead of going off for 20 points in the first half of that game, gone into the stands and started a brawl. But not every player is going to be a Steve Kerr and they shouldn't have to be. They should be able to have fun and play the game, and yes take a little teasing. The bottom line is that when people make the choice to drink and then talk crap to 200 lb men, at some point things are going to get ugly. Check this out for some pretty cool (clean) chanting from Utah State.