Riot Act Memories
Haha, just found this article that someone wrote about the Riot Acts that were controversial at the time. Thought it was interesting. Replaced my last name with HF38 so you creeps couldn't find me. Just thought it was fun to read, for the rare members that were around in the beginning basektball days of Red Riot when we had the Riot Acts...
By: Jared Bell
At most schools you wouldn’t expect the students to compile information that says Stephen F. Austin is a very Texas-themed school. Everything from their logo, to their Web site, and even their name is pretty much cowboy.
At most schools you wouldn’t expect the students to find information that says Nacogdoches, Texas, is the top blueberry producer in Texas.
And at most schools you wouldn’t expect students to encourage others students to wave their shoes in the air and chant “Shoe” at tip-off of a basketball game.
But apparently Northern Illinois University is not like most schools.
Thanks to its student-based, athletic-support organization, Red Riot, and one of its founding members, HF38, the Red Riot has these kinds of facts at their disposal in the Riot Act, which is a list of information about opposing teams and their players.
So when opposing schools step foot on the hardwood at the Convocation Center the Red Riot lets the opposition hear it much like they would at a larger Division I school.
“It was something that we thought we be fun, and it’s something that makes the game more fun,” HF38 said. “If we run out of things we make up ourselves, we refer to the Riot Act. We have individual dirt, dirt on the entire team and how the team has done this season.”
For the last year and a half the Red Riot has produced the Riot Act. The organization came up with the idea after seeing a similar idea at Colorado University.
“We wanted to have something similar to their newsletters,” said HF38, who actually went to DeKalb High School with the founder of Colorado’s C Unit. “That way we would have dirt on the other team that we could scream at them while they were on the floor. It’s just information that students want to know.”
The dirt varies from game to game, but the Act includes a wide range of miscellaneous information. For past Acts, dirt on individual players included information such as then player was Homecoming King in 2006 or their uncle played for the San Francisco 49ers or their birthday was last week.
“It’s all in good fun,” HF38 said. “We don’t put anything too horribly offensive in there.”
The farthest the group goes is finding out the names player’s girlfriends. In the past, the group has actually found opposing players on Web sites, like Facebook and My Space, and added them as friends just to obtain information to use for the game.
“We do add them as friends and then backstab them,” HF38 admits with a smile. “If you’re chanting their girlfriend’s name while they are shooting a free throw it gives them something else to think about. If it would ever get out of hand than I would stop putting it in there, but it don’t think it has.”
The biggest fans of the Riot Acts might be from the basketball squad itself, especially by first-year men’s coach Ricardo Patton, who came to NIU from Colorado.
“The players love it,” HF38 said. “We actually asked the coaches if it was too offensive or anything and (coach Patton) said it wasn’t offensive enough.”
Using the information from the Riot Acts to throw off opposing players vary in effectiveness from team to team. Normally, a larger Division I school doesn’t seem as fazed as compared to Division III squads that NIU plays during the preseason.
“Division III schools eat it up,” HF38 said. “We played Augustana and Aurora this year and we had a lot of fun with them. They were like, ‘How do they know all this stuff? How do they know my girlfriends name?”
The group has been able to effectively frustrate more than its share of players in the past year and a half, but some incidents are more memorable than others.
The prize, according HF38, happened last season when the Western Michigan women’s team came to DeKalb. During the game, the team frustrated Western Michigan star Carrie Moore so much that the future WNBA player actually punted the basketball across the stadium in anger.
“That’s my personal favorite,” HF38 said.
On another occasion the group was actually approached by an official, who told the members they probably had better things to do than sit at a basketball game, like going home and doing homework.
“We all shook our heads like, ‘no,’” HF38 said.
The team just added the Red Riot Traditions section to the Riot Act. Some of the traditions are common ones, like turning around when the opposing team’s lineup is announced or if a player shoots an air ball, chanting “Air Ball” every time the player touches the ball or when the opposing team’s shot clock reaches 10 seconds, starting a count down at five.
However, they do have some special-to-NIU traditions, like whenever a player commits a foul yelling, “Hey don’t touch me . . . ’cuz I’m a Huskie.” However, the most might be waving shoes in the air and chanting “Shoe” at the tip off.
“There are a lot of kids at the game so we like to make the kids laugh, and holding a shoe up in the air and chanting shoe is so pointless that it makes little kids and even adults laugh,” HF38 said. “Most (traditions) are pretty common, but shoe is definitely our trademark.”
With the Red Riot a young program, the Riot Act has helped to bring in new members and people to NIU basketball games, even if the student does not specifically like basketball.
“It has helped to draw a lot of new people in because they are like, ‘That’s pretty cool,’” HF38 said. “It gives us something more to do than just to watch the game.”
(This post was last modified: 08-30-2012 01:04 PM by Huskiefan38.)
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