I Love BYU Sports But...

Last weekend was the men's basketball season (home) opener. I went to dinner with Ashley and Tresa and we headed up to the Marriot Center for the game. We quickly found some pretty decent seats, but soon noticed these weird laminated fliers on the benches. Some marked the two outside seats on every other row for the "Spirit Squad." (Spirit Squad tangent: I think that's dumb. It's the combination of the co-ed cheer squad, the all girls cheer squad, and the cougarettes (the dance team). I hate the cougarettes already on principle, but why do we need an all female cheer squad? I only think this is acceptable if they are recieving athletic scholarships that allow us to have more male athletes because of title IX. Also, why do all of these things need to be combined together? Moving on.) Then some other fliers were floating around all over with people reading them and then passing on. I stole one and took a picture of it. This is what it looks like (if it is too small to read, just click).



At first glance, no big deal. I figured it was not a terrible idea to let people know the schedule of the pre (and even post) game events, though it was a little unneccessary. What really bothers me is the assigned actions for cheering during the introductions and game. I didn't grow up near BYU or watching BYU sports. When I came here as a freshman I had no idea what to expect or what to do at sporting events. But now, after having attended many I know what to do when the band plays the imperial march at football games. I know when to chant 'you got swatted' at basketball games and to keep at it everytime that player has the ball at least for the half. I know that when we kick off in a football we get louder as our player runs towards the ball and then get a little quieter with our yell as the ball falls. I know these things because I've attended events and I've learned. I wasn't given any special tutorial or magical handbook (or laminated flier) to tell me what to do. I learned the old fashioned way, by being around other real fans that know what to do. This takes the magic out of the crowd and fans and being there all together united in one cause - your team's cause.