Fans and their chants from the stands…
September 16, 2008
I have been keeping up with the ongoing saga of Vince Young and the fans in Tennessee. Just to catch everyone up, Mr. Young was playing horribly and the fans started booing. Then he threw an interception. On the sideline he pouted and whined and then refused to take the field when his team went back on offense. The fans promptly cheered when they thought Vince was being replaced by Kerry Collins. When he saw Collins going in and the crowd’s reaction, he jumped off the bench, went out on the field, and got “hurt”. Since that game, he has been benched, been on suicide watch, and his team is winning without him.
Vince Young’s woes helped me remember a few funny and mean things I have heard coming from the stadium stands. Possibly the worst experience of my life transpired after the UNLV game in 2004. It was my freshman year and Jon Burbidge, the starting safety, went down with an injury. I was thrust into the game for the first time with no warning or hesitation. During the course of the game, I had exactly zero solo tackles. To make matters worse, the Cougars lost…at home…to the Rebels.
After the final horn had sounded and the team was making its way back to the locker room, I heard a faint voice off in the distance yelling my name. I looked up and saw a small kid pointing and clapping while yelling, “Way to play the whole game Gooch, and you managed to not even make one tackle. You’re awesome.” I felt one inch tall – but it was true – and I wanted to strangle both him and myself. I have thought about that kid often. He helped me improve my game as my career went on. In hindsight, the verbal abuse helped. So Mr. Young stay strong, you’ll make it, and besides, you can go home and cry yourself to sleep on a million dollar pillow. All I had was a basement room in a crappy blue house south of campus, which I shared with Dustin Gabriel.
I also have a few funny comments that fans have yelled from the bleachers. One of the funniest was in sunny Southern California. During the pre-game warm-ups the student section was being hilarious. They started yelling Brett Cooper’s name. They would yell out a players name until they knew the player was listening and then they would simply yell out, “You suck.” They continued with a few other players and then came to Jason Kukahiko. The crowd tried to yell his name out, but kept on saying it wrong, and then yelled out, “Aaahhh whatever, you suck.” Everyone that heard them trying to pronounce Jason’s name laughed. It may not seem that funny but it was all in the delivery. There’s also your ever-so-classy stadiums that fill the heavens with “F U BYU,” but they were normally very quiet by the time the first quarter was over.
So Vince, try not to sweat the small stuff. Yeah, the whole stadium cheered when you left the field, but it’s happened to every player in the history of the world. (wink wink) Just don’t pull a Ron Artest and go postal on the Newman looking fella in the first row who won’t remember what he said in the morning. Smile, because there are always blue skies in the distance.
I remember a funny sign aimed at Joe Semanoff while playing at TCU. Can you remember what it said? I felt so bad for him because he is such a stud and the last person that needs to be ridiculed.
I have been witness to some funny fans in the stands. My favorite memory was SDSU at home in ‘06. We had seats in the north endzone in the first couple of rows. The cougs were inside the ten and we started yelling at one of the safeties named Bass. Basically we told him that the play was coming his way and he better get ready or get run over. The very next play Curtis ran to his side and juked him til his ankles broke and ran in for the TD untouched. He looked so dejected but we just let him have it some more.
I love sitting close enough for the players to hear us. There are tons of stories like this one, you just have to ask Ross. He is the master of trash talk.
G, what was the worst fan base/stadium you ever played in? Was it UoA? That’s where my money is. . .that was a class act.
Quick correction on Justin’s comment: It wasn’t Curtis Brown that scored on Bass, it was Zac Collie.
And you’ve got to love the home crowd ripping on their own players. I assume the UNLV game you mentioned was at home, since it was in 2004. Any BYU fan that rips on a BYU player like that kid did deserves an Ike Turner to the back of the head.
But I guess times were different in 2004. Fan morale was probably at an all time low at that point. I’m just glad I wasn’t here to witness the 2003/2004 seasons.
Yeah…Whoneen Tulane came to town we were in the north end right on the rail yelling at Mewelde Moore, and I just remember him turning and flipping us off, he then promptly received the ball and ran it in for a touchdown.
We taunted him even more in the game and he was cool about it even mentioning to us to “keep it up” he wanted to score more touchdowns…
I remember at a BYU Baseball game (so cool cause you’re sitting just above the dugout–you can SMELL the grass!) And the New Mexico coach had gone through like 8 pitchers. He had just changed (I think) to his final available pitcher (BYU was hitting the ball like a magnet to steel) ANYWAY…we were asking the coach if HE was going in to pitch next, cause he had nobody left. Oh, he heard us alright, and I don’t remember a dirtier look. I think BYU won like 12-3 or some odd score. But they heard everything you said. That’s why I like volleyball too. Sit above the server and give ‘em heck the whole game. We’ve definately influenced some bad serves!
One of my favorites was at BYU against Utah. There were two Ute fans surrounded by all of us in Blue, they were drunk and obnoxious, but funny. They were really trying to taunt all of us and one of them said, “Hey, do you think if we get beat up, we’ll get better booty call?” Still a classic in my mind.
The best from last game: midway through the fourth my buddy yells through his megaphone at the UCLA fans, yeah we’re 7th row north-west corner next to the fans and close enough that we see every opposing fan and family member and team member look over and try to yell back without a megaphone. Anyway, he yells, “Hey UCLA I have just many points in this game as you do!” then a guy behind us adds, “And just as many yards!” Of course by then we’d had so much to yell to them their middle fingers were too tired to be raised at us again so they just sunk their heads and got ready to leave.
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