Dear Faux: Is booing your own team proper behavior?

[Saunders]

Quote

 

Dear Faux Pelini,

I am an Ohio State fan and it embarrasses me when my fellow Buckeye fans boo our team for subpar performance. Is booing your own team proper fan behavior? 

Best,
Ashamed Buckeye 

 

Well Ashamed,

When your next-door neighbor announces that he has the right to do something, you can be sure it’s something bad. There will a bizarre shrub or perverted statue in your future. In the same way, when a sports fan announces he’s doing something because it’s his right, you know something stupid is coming. Some people just do what they want to do because they can. That’s the only reason they need. Most of us grasped the difference between Can and Should in kindergarten, but a select group of us carried Can/Should confusion into adulthood.

 

Boo Guy is one of these people.

 

When you ask Boo Guy why he’s booing his own team, he will say he paid for his ticket and it’s his right. There are lots of things that he has the right to do and chooses not to, of course. He can turn his basement into a termite farm; he can call his friend’s grandmother an ignorant slut; he can do somersaults down an escalator. Just because he can do something doesn’t mean he should.

 

But Boo Guy doesn’t care about that distinction. He makes himself feel better by making the players feel worse, and he does it because he can. That’s good enough for him and his kindergarten brain. Yes, Ashamed, booing is our God-given right. But only idiots boo college kids, especially ones on their side.

 

https://theathletic.com/113194/2017/09/29/dear-faux-pelini-is-booing-your-own-team-proper-behavior/?source=email

 

 

[Saunders]

[brophog]

I'm not a boo'er. If I'm that miserable, I'll stay home. 

[The Dude]

Sports fans are such sensitive twits.

[Undone]

There have been so few times that we've ever really had booing at Memorial. When it has happened, I feel like it's largely coming from the student section. 

[GSG]

[InOmaha]

There are only a select few ways most fans can communicate.  Pay money for a seat, cheer, clap, boo, stay home and save money for something better, discuss/complain anonomously on a message board, call into a talk radio show, curse at the TV.

 

Most people have a rather high tolerance for poor performance and will continue to pay good money and cheer.  It takes continued poor performance for them to pay good money and boo.  Even more poor performance to stay home and save money for something better.

 

Discussing/complaining on a board or talk radio happens regardless of performance. 

 

Cursing at the TV is a given.

 

If you're a big booster, you can tell the AD what you think in your luxury box.  It's like booing but much more effective.

[broganreynik]

33 minutes ago, Undone said:

There have been so few times that we've ever really had booing at Memorial. When it has happened, I feel like it's largely coming from the student section. 

 

Yet one of the few times was for the apple of Husker Joe Six-Pack's eye.

[ZRod]

I don't even think the fans booed the team this year.. I think the booes at halftime of NIU game were directed at the officials.

[Mavric]

2 minutes ago, ZRod said:

I don't even think the fans booed the team this year.. I think the booes at halftime of NIU game were directed at the officials.

 

Some people were either booing Tanner Lee's pick six against Rutgers or that he was put back in the game after that.

[Moiraine]

I'm guessing 90% of the time people boo their own team, it's aimed at the coaches.

[admo]

17 minutes ago, Mavric said:

 

Some people were either booing Tanner Lee's pick six against Rutgers or that he was put back in the game after that.

 

They totally were.  It drove Matt Davison up a wall during the radio broadcast.  I could hear it and didn't like it either.

 

And yes, it happened the time you mentioned when he trotted back out following kickoff after the pick six. 

 

Davison wasn't thrilled with the INT and that HCMR did not make a switch following half time (myself included). 

 

My thing is, holler and yell all you want, but keep the boo's for the Pro sporting events.  Those are paid grown men. 

[jaws]

13 minutes ago, admo said:

 

They totally were.  It drove Matt Davison up a wall during the radio broadcast.  I could hear it and didn't like it either.

 

And yes, it happened the time you mentioned when he trotted back out following kickoff after the pick six. 

 

Davison wasn't thrilled with the INT and that HCMR did not make a switch following half time (myself included). 

 

My thing is, holler and yell all you want, but keep the boo's for the Pro sporting events.  Those are paid grown men. 

 

Sometimes the college "kids" are paid grown men. 

 

I think I would only boo if someone on my team started a fight or if it was a blatant cheap shot. 

[admo]

Just now, jaws said:

 

Sometimes the college "kids" are paid grown men. 

 

I think I would only boo if someone on my team started a fight or if it was a blatant cheap shot. 

 

Yeah, at Ole Miss and Auburn... 

[Sker fer life]

47 minutes ago, Moiraine said:

I'm guessing 90% of the time people boo there own team, it's aimed at the coaches.

I agree with this.