DAMN YOU COLLEGE BASKETBALL FANS!!! YOU PIECES OF CRAP!!!
 

Blame overzealous fans, not players, for college basketball’s woes

by Yael T. Abouhalkah

College basketball fans are out of control, and not just at Texas Tech.

These out-of-control fans are staining a game played by 18-22 year olds, “student-athletes” who don’t get paid directly (but often get scholarships) to attend school.

The fans are overzealous at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, the University of Missouri in Columbia, Kansas State University in Manhattan and basically most other NCAA schools that take basketball oh-so-seriously.

The Marcus Smart-Jeff Orr confrontation Saturday night has received national attention, and for good reason.

Smart, an Oklahoma State student, was wrong to go into the stands and shove Orr, a fan, near the conclusion of the Cowboys’ game with Texas Tech. His three-game suspension, handed out Sunday, is appropriate.

But Orr — a proclaimed “super fan” of the Red Raiders — was also wrong for, in his own words, calling Smart a “piece of crap” right before the incident.

Orr represents much of what’s wrong with college basketball these days: Yelling negative comments at Texas Tech’s opponents, spending thousands of dollars to attend games around the country, and seeming to take great delight in the attention he gets by simply sitting in the stands, contributing too little that’s positive to the game itself.

Orr said Sunday that he wouldn’t attend any more Texas Tech games this year. (That makes me want Texas Tech to make it to the Final Four this year, just to punish Orr even more.)

The Smart/Orr incident is hardly the only example of how fans have gone way overboard in investing in college basketball these days. (The same argument could be made, and even stronger, in football, but that’s a whole other discussion.)

Just look at KU, my alma mater, which is led by $5-million-a-year coach Bill Self.

That salary is obscene, but it is, of course, just one of many multimillion-salaries for coaches of “student-athletes” in the college game. Who supports paying this kind of money to Self? The fans who want KU to be a national powerhouse, the fans who put pressure on KU’s athletic directors to overpay for this kind of position.

And the bad fans come in all ages.

Over at MU, basketball fans known as the Antlers have been tossed out of games this year for being disrespectful to other teams.

Finally, watch Twitter feeds, blogs and other social media these days to see how over-invested fans get in the outcome of a college basketball game.

These “fans” are hyper-critical of the smallest things, acting as if they are playing themselves, taking all of this oh-so-seriously.

They appear to be almost unhinged, as if something really important in their lives were riding on the outcome of a college basketball game.

This is how we get to sad incident like the one that happened Saturday night in Lubbock, Texas.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2014/02/09...#storylink=cpy

You have to love how people act like this is something new.

There are some things that are definitely new. The world of social media has taken heckling to a new level, and it's a lot easier for athletes' private lives to become heckling bait. More than anything, even if it's not anything new, it's been long due that we start having this conversation.

Sport is pure garbage

Yael T. Abouhalkah


He is a piece of crap.


And the Antlers were rude? What? I bet next year some naughty person says a bad word at a Chiefs game.

Slow day for the editorial department at the red star

Nah. This conversation has been had before, it doesn't change anything. Fans are fans, it's never going to change. Move on.

Every single time, I mean every time I see Yael T. Abouhalkah's name attached to something on the Star's website, it's just brimming with stupid.

FYP

Because college basketball fans in the 70s, 80s, and 90s practiced good sportsmanship 100% of the time, said "please" and "thank you" in public, washed their hands after every trip to the bathroom, and had farts that smelled like cinnamon rolls.

This author can go **** himself.

Lewis Duiguid can trump old Yael anyway of the week. But you are right.

Every bit of heckling is magnified. It's hard not to feel for a young college kicker who misses a field goal, then gets death threats through multiple media channels. We live in a new age. Fans know way too much personal information including where you live, faces are more recognizable, and there are so many media channels out there that you can't hide like you used to from criticism.

I think it's a lousy system that fans live in this bubble where they can say the worst kind of things, but if a player responds by shoving, flicking a fan off, responding to a tweet... all of a sudden, the player is the one that was out of line. In a perfect world, I wish players could just drill assholes who go one step too far. Since it isn't a perfect world, there should be more fans and players who call out fans who don't know where that line is. So while the digital world makes it tougher to have thick skin, it might also finally hold assholes more accountable.

So does calling a player a "piece of crap" meet your standard for the fan getting drilled? What if the fan was a senior citizen? A disabled person? A soldier in uniform? A woman? A child? Just curious where you think the line is.

(What you said about social media is true, but doesn't seem to apply in the Orr/Smart incident.)

Woes?

Syracuse - Duke was the 4th highest rated regular season game on ESPN since 2002. And it was played on a Saturday night… the worst TV night of the week.

College Basketball ratings and ad revenue are at all time records.

dumb article

On Orr specifically... I'll wait to hear the full story on this. As of right now, no real smoking gun. But John Lucas, a more credible source, implies that he's said some pretty bad shit. So even if he's innocent (again... we'll see), he may have done enough over his lifetime as a superfan that he deserves negative attention.

The line is drawn regardless of race or gender. I said in another thread, in sports, you have a lot of leeway. I think any reasonable human being should know where those lines are.

On the race issue... Desmond Moses said the N-word gets used regularly in Lubbock, and he didn't hear that everywhere. So again... I'm interested to hear how this plays out as the truth unfolds.

Duke's Speedo Guy still cracks my shit up.

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Well so far as I've heard or read, "piece of crap" seems to be the only "slur" (obviously non-racial) attributed to Orr. Hardly seems worthy of "getting drilled". But like you, I'll reserve judgement until I hear or read more detail on the matter.

No one has posted " ban college basketball!" Yet? This thread disappoints.

Sorry, bro. Here you go...


BAN ALL SPORTS!

What a crappy article. It's like a post from this place, and not even one that anyone would consider any good.

Yael has some of the worst cognitive thinking skills I have ever witnessed in a journalist. The F?

Nice piece of journalism.

Ban Yael T. Abouhalkah

I'll never understand people that dog and verbally abuse college athletes. For the most part, they are kids playing for an education.

"University of Missouri in Columbia,"

I’m a KU fan that has been to a few games in Columbia. Other than the Antlers I would say the MU Fans are pretty Tame. To be fair I never saw them play their hated rival but against teams like OK State and Alabama the rowdiest I saw was the old guys telling the young kid up front to sit down so they didn’t have to stand to watch the game.

we know what he meant when he said piece of crap. we know.

Someone is taking himself oh-so-seriously.

Fans from little league to the pros are nuts.

That guy got paid to write that.

Huh.

Fist fight at the AAU wrestling tournament yesterday. Between 2 parents.

People are stupid. Last year at a youth soccer game the ref had to warn the parents on the opposing team that he was going to ask them all to leave because they were shouting stuff at my son's team. Stopped the game and made their coach come over and tell them to stop shouting negative comments.
These are 9 year old kids playing.

Agreed. I've been to several big school arenas. There are uusually funny heckling chants riled up by the student section. But it sounds like several alumni are clearly saying that Texas Techhas an unusual problem, and I do think adult hecklers like this are the exception, not the rule.

Tech is very rough.....been to some of their football games. You better be on the lookout if you are wearing opposing colors.

Depends on what you call 'new'.

In relative terms, it is pretty new. People care about sports a lot more than they did 50 years ago.