yay, sports

"Ow, watch it, fucker!"


Tennessee basketball is the only sport for which I would call myself a die-hard fan. When I was a kid the team was always bad and had cheap tickets to games. My dad would get season tickets because basketball is fun, and we'd go every once in a while. Good times.

This is turning out to be a good season, though, largely due to our new head coach Bruce Pearl, whose bobblehead doll was dispensed at the Georgia game, which was last night. It was the best turnout I've ever seen for a men's basketball game, with something like 22,000 people there. It was nothing like when I was a kid, with few people there, the team screwing up, and the drunkest and loudest man in the whole arena sitting right behind us, sharing with the team (even at exhibition games and preseason crapfests) gems such as "Get the ball", "Way to pass it to the other team", "Go", "Shoot the damn ball", "Goddamn", or my personal favorite, "You're a fuckin' disgrace."

But no, the Vols are doing fine this year, and if they keep things up, could be on their way to the playoffs, which would make Knoxville very happy.

But in the midst of all of this optimism, a peculiar and humorous phenomenon is emerging. UT is a football school. It just is. But last night at the basketball game, the student blocks were full and supportive, but without direction. If you've seen really good basketball on TV (i.e. Duke, UNC, probably Kentucky), you see student sections who have a solid repertoire of chants, dances, songs, hoots, and any other number of obnoxious things to do. We don't have that. Sure, we say "Sucks" really loudly when they call the roster of the other team out and do the newspaper thing, but other than that, we're sort of lost. When something happens, most people scream and cheer, but then look around at everybody else for a cue or something to due uniformly. How funny.

Q.E.D. : Go Vols.