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In this week’s Sports Illustrated, there was an excellent article written by Grant Wahl, concerning terrible student section behavior incidents throughout this college season. Much of the article discusses how much abuse freshmen Kevin Love and Eric Gordon received as players playing on the road in their homestates (Oregon and Illinois respectively). Besides awful chants being directed at these players, their attending family members were also abused throughout the game. I don’t want to leave the obnoxious student sections without blame, but the two driving forces behind the rise of abusive college crowds are 1) ESPN and the sports media for praising and supporting the impact on these fans in the game and 2) the colleges and universities for marketing a wild and crazy “Student Fan Experience” to prospective students. With the media making these sections part of the storyline of a game and the schools bolstering raucus behavior, its hardly surprising that college students are acting terribly at college games.

During every college basketball broadcast, the powers that be always spend an inordinate time talking up the “support of the home crowd” and the “6th Man” notion. Pregame pieces are produced analyzing the effect a crowd has on a game. The Erin Andrews and Dick Vitales of the world find it necessary to break the 4th wall and enter the student sections at Duke and Kentucky and even Southern Illinois (see below) among others in order to build up importance of a home crowd.

Its clear that a home crowd effects the outcome of a game, especially in college, but when the media is producing pieces that promote a fan group that “goes online and finds out your (an opposing player’s) personal information”, there is something wrong . Of course, if these student sections are praised for their abusive behavior via sport’s biggest speakerphone, their actions will only continue to worsen. Student sections look at themselves as a crucial part of the game, and why not the media seems to treat them as such. So why not dig up the darkest times of an 18-year-olds’ past and jeer them for a tough time involving, for example, the loss of a parent (see the mention to Steve Kerr in the SI article).

For the lazier bad-mouthed fan, there’s always the simple homophobic remark towards an opposing players. These should be considered equally as offensive as racial remarks, but instead is a just a good laugh that most schools are complicit with. Nevermind that these institutions always talk up their acceptance of all at their universities.

Naturally, with all of this positive coverage coming the way of a school with a great student section, the universities jump at the chance to prop up similar groups at their own schools. For a university, these student groups become the major linking force between the school’s teams and the student body at-large. They become another major draw to a school when it comes time to attract perspective students. “Come to Duke and be part of the Cameron Experience!” or “Coming to UConn means being part of ‘Huskeymania’!”. These all become sells to a university, sometimes trumping academics, and the numbers support this. Schools like Ohio State, USC and Florida all saw record numbers of applicants and a more competitive applicant base overall during their recent successes in their various sports.

So yes, these student sections deserve to be criticized harshly as they act irresponsibly and with malice. However, when they are given a huge voice with which to voice their hate, both by the media and by their own schools, bad behavior should be anticipated. These groups stoop to new lows in order to out-mean and under-class their rivals so that they can be the story around a game, rather than the game itself. What a novel idea, the game itself as the primary story. Clearly, based on what behavior is accepted by the media and by the schools themselves, the major motivations behind college sports prove once again to be financial even as the NCAA toots their horn of amateurism and student-athletics.

Thanks to College Sports.com for the pictures.

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