(09-15-2011 06:56 PM)jcsportsfan2 Wrote: Did any of the visiting players ever get hurt? Or was it just the risk of them getting hurt that they moved the visitors to the other sideline?
Never hurt them, except maybe their feelings......
My rather large group of Athletics friends used to go to a lot of women's volleyball games as well, and they were at Chick Evans. We would sit at the ends of court, like sitting in the endzone of a football game. Since in VB the teams switch sides each match, the old time equivelent of the Dog Pound would switch sides as well to sit behind the opposing teams. You should have seen the eyes of the opponents when we all got up and followed them to the other side!
We were BRUTAL to those opponents. Absolutely brutal. We'd make comments about their sweat stained shorts, say they smelled bad, used to chant the opponents number or name when they made a bad play. It worked 100% of the time, 60% of the time. Sometimes the best was to figure our who the freshman were on the other team, because they would be the most emotionally fragile; just out of HS, and now playing D1 ball and having "adults" heckle them like no tomorrow....
We would get into the opponents heads and we helped the Huskies win games...... And then Huskie VB players would always run over to our section after the game for high fives and hugs. Head VB coach Pete Waite (remember him?) was our biggest fan and supporter. He'd make the VB players go support the other non-revenue sports as thanks, and it was great to see them in the stands when we competed.
Of course, and I wish I could remember the team, all I remember is that their uniforms were white, and their coach absolutely flipped out at the NIU officials at a game about our conduct. We were not saints by any means, but we were not crude nor racist nor mysogynistic etc etc. Just good, hard heckling, any only here or there inappropriate. So Dee Abrahamson (Asst AD) came over, and with a very large grin on her face, asked us if we could dial it back because the refs could technically award the game to the other side if we were deemed offensivlely out of line, plus the other team said they were going to file an official protest with the MCC offices.
Typical, eh? That took a lot of fun out of going to the VB games, but we still went to support the girls as they were very good back in the late 90's.