[b]COLUMN - Worst student section: Vaught-Hemingway

by Steven Godfrey
The Life
September 10, 2004

Due to newspaper-type complications out of my control, I’ve had a week to stew on the Memphis game and its ramifications. This column is late coming, and I’m sure you’re expecting the hammer to come down. Don’t worry. I’m swinging.

Q: What was the most disappointing thing the Memphis game?

A: It wasn’t the Rebel offense (that’s a close second).

Nope, it was you. The student fan.

The student body of this university should be ashamed. I couldn’t be more disgusted with the lack of attendance, attention and vigor by the student section at the Memphis game. The only thing more disjointed and ineffective than the Rebel offense on Saturday were the student fans.

I know what I’m talking about: In my sixth season in a row, the student body has never shown more apathy, and I’ve sat through many an Arkansas State homecoming rout.

An hour before kickoff, I was standing in the south end zone looking up at row after row of empty seats. The regular UM ticket holders were ready. The Memphis sections were packed.

At kickoff, I was on the photo deck below the press box with an unobstructed view of the entire stadium. The student section was 40 percent empty when the team ran out. It was the only section that was empty, and the only that wasn’t awash in either Rebel red or Tiger blue. Instead, it looked like a sparsely populated Gap ad filled with liquored up zombies.

This isn’t rocket science. You were supposed to wear red.

Not baby blue dress shirts. Not a strapless little black number. It’s called “spirit.

Couldn't agree more. I had a friend(Memphis fan)who took another friend (who was an avid UT fan and alumnus) to the Memphis/Ole Miss game . When asked who he would cheer for he said Ole Miss b/c they were also an SEC school. After sitting in the student section for the first quarter he was cheering for the Tigers. He thought their fans sucked. I've had similar experiences down there.

Students behaving badly may be something new to the young writer but in my day I've seen Ga. Tech students hurl whiskey bottles at Bama's Bear Bryant to the point that Bryant had to don a helmut to watch pre-game warm-ups. A couple of years later Tech fans & students pelted the Notre Dame players & coaches with raw fish.
Not to single out Tech, in 1970 I was present in Athens when Georgia students shoved Ole Miss cheerleaders to the side & unfurled a big banner reading "Piss on Ole Miss" and a rather ugly fight with a couple of male Rebel cheerleaders ensued. ( Fortunately Archie & Crew had the last word on the field that day).
Georgia's students have been consistantly rude for years but they're nothing compared to Clemson students; and that bunch from West Virginia a few years ago was pretty seedy.
Vanderbilts band showed poor manners & etiquette in '98 by interuppting the Ole Miss band when it tried to play "Dixie", apparently politically incorrect in Nashville these days.
Bottom line; nobody has the exclusive rights to boorish unsportmanlike behaviour.
At least none of us are in the same category as European Soccer fans.

1) Bear Bryant was pelted partially because of him turning his back to Georgia Tech on the scholarship issue that led to GT leaving the SEC

2) Notre Shame deserves anything and everything for that sham of a "win" at the end of Rudy. FAKEEEEEEE.

:D :wave:

I suppose I failed to mention that I also thoroughly enjoyed both of those Tech events & would have gleefully joined in hurling trout at the "Golden Domers" had I brought my lunch into the game -- instead of eating at the Varsity that day!!

gomemphistigers1 Wrote:"I know what I’m talking about: In my sixth season in a row, the student body has never shown more apathy, and I’ve sat through many an Arkansas State homecoming rout."

Here's to Ole Miss fans not having to sit through another ASU homecoming rout.



go stAte!!!!!!!