The Pro and Cons of Home Team Booing: A Quick and Very Incomplete History

[Washington Waddler]

(I tried to dip my oar in this discussion a tad late, so here’s my two cents.)

 

     Booing your own team is something that concerns any fan who cares. And, it’s always pointless to consider this type of booing by those who don’t care because their agenda is beyond reason — like a drunk fan. However, for fans that do care, booing your own team is, at the very least, one of two things: either an impulsive, irresponsible reaction, or tough love.  Booing the home team is either unjustified because you care, or justified because you do care.

 

     The first reaction is most likely rooted in a long gone but not forgotten past when college football stands were primarily filled by those who shared a common link with those on the field: they both attend (or attended) the same college. Students, faculty, alumni and their families make a pretty sympathetic choir because the line between ‘them and us’ disappears in a shared Identity. In addition, academic experience is rooted in learning, and learning is rooted in encouragement, not derision. Add to that a university system controlled and operated by only those that ‘have’, and you’ve got a self-supportive, if very exclusive little club.

 

     Enter the NFL.  With the advent of football as a substitute for warfare, it’s popularity grew to include those without the means to enter the club that held the reins. So, start your own club — one that turns football into a profession.

 

     The second reaction is primarily rooted in the difference between these two clubs: you’re  paying not for an education, but for entertainment, and you’ve nothing in common with those on the field other than a presumed bond of community identity which roughly translates as, “hooray for you, but what have you done for me lately”? Those hard earned dollars in Chicago, Detroit and Pittsburgh wanted something in return that justified the spending.

 

American football had moved from a shared experience of amateur athletic excellence to become a professional product. Add to that the eventual inclusion into universities of talented ‘have nots’  being sought by football coaches — and the unavoidable perception of college football as becoming a farm system for the NFL —  and you’ve created a bond between amateur and professional leveraged by the notion of product; a hand-me-down attitude from NFL to college that home teams are subject to the same judgement of the fan as consumer: Booing.

 

    What’s at issue is the fuzzy line that separates those who produce from the product itself. Even when fans understand their watching student athletes learning a process, it’s still the product being payed for that they see. And when it comes to a contest between shared identity and product, product is going to win every time. You don’t get to the CFP on moral victories. But neither do you get there by alienating your team and coaches with booing, and the recruits who might make it a better product. 

 

     The answer? The time it takes to learn as a group the line you just don’t cross — which only seems to happen through trial and error — as evidenced by the successful programs that continue to fill the stands and recruit at a high level regardless of off seasons. 

 

     It’s okay to encourage a better product, just don’t kill the goose that lays the golden egg in the process.

[DanLduck]

A great article WW. I like your premise.

 

I admit to booing some, but I don't believe it was ever on the player. It seems to me it was about a combination of the play called and poor execution by the team, and always as a last straw. After a continuation of succeeding bad play calls.

 

Like the booing at the Cal game, no one booed at Fresno State, or Stonybrook, or Arizona, but by the third dump down pass on a third and long attempt that had no chance...it was time for tough love.

 

I agree that college students are kids and should not be booed on principal, but sometimes coaches and players need to know there are live bodies in the seats and like loving parents, we won't tolerate nonsense for too long.

[Charles Fischer]

We have covered this subject extensively and I think everyone has been able to state their perspective.  This "booing" topic is like a COVID thread, in that it quickly goes off the rails.  People write things regardless of the rules, and it creates a ton of work for me, and creates disharmony among members.  

 

Thus I am locking this thread before it gets going.  Everyone...don't start any more topic threads about this subject.  For more examples and threads....go here and here.