I graduated from UCLA many decades ago and have been proud of my UCLA degree ever since. I have followed Bruin basketball all of that time – there have been many glorious years.
Now, to my great pleasure, the UCLA basketball team has reached the ranking of No. 2 nationally, and perhaps they will be No. 1 soon.
But it occurs to me that UCLA fans could be No. 1 right now and forever in the history of the sport if they took the lead in sportsmanship by showing respect and admiration for the opposing team’s players, instead of doing things like distracting them during their free throw attempts. If UCLA’s team isn’t allowed to distract opposing players, why should fans?
With the team once again in the spotlight, this could be a teaching moment for the whole country – a country that currently seems to believe that an opponent must not just be beaten, but hated, humiliated and destroyed as well. Is it any wonder that the country as a whole acts this way when colleges serve as a breeding ground for this kind of behavior in most of their big-time sports?
Let’s put UCLA sports back in the headlines in a new way, with players and fans showing support and respect for opposing players. Shaking hands at the end of the game is nice, but it is not really enough. Then, let our team go out there and knock them out (without giving them concussions). That would make a lot of graduates very, very proud.
Ron Harris, B.A. Music
Class of 1966
Hmmmm . . . Okay.
Ron Harris, you do have a few years on me– I graduated in ’85 (although I started in ’77– Long story,). I HAVE been a fan of Bruin basketball fan since I was a kid in the 60’s, though. The thing of fans distracting the opposing players shooting foul shots has been around for at least that long, and probably much longer. Certainly the Bruins get that same treatment in opponents’ arenas, so . . . I wouldn’t get your hopes up too high. Also, players at the college level are assumed to be able to tune out such fan tactics. Bryce Alford certainly seems to have been able to master that particular skill.
While I agree in principle with what you are trying to say, wild, loud crowds have always been part of the “home court advantage,” and trying to legislate them out of existence would likely be seen as sucking the fun out of attending sporting events–especially for the students, who, God bless ’em, tend to be young, naturally boisterous and fun loving. I don’t think the powers that be want to do that.
Look– I’m not saying that fans showing “good sportsmanship” is a bad idea. It’s definitely not. It’s just that different people have different ideas of where the cutoff point is between “bad” & “acceptable” behavior. And additionally, it often depends on the context. For example, Bruins fans’ behavior that may be considered by me to be “bad sportsmanship” when the Bruins are playin Kentucky, might very well be considered by me to be perfectly acceptable when the Bruins are facing ‘SC. Come to think of it, I don’t care WHO ‘SC is playing– I tend to have zero sympathy for them if the other team’s fans moon them from the stands, not that I am in any way endorsing that type of thing, especially at Pauley.
I don’t claim to have the perfect answers to addressing student fan behavior. I don’t. I can only advise today’s kids to have fun and enjoy these college life experiences while you can, because they’ll be over before you know it and you’ll wake up some day hundreds, or like me, thousands of miles away from Westwood, wishing you could be there at Pauley rooting the Bruins on to victory.
Just try to use the common sense that a UCLA student– a student at the frickin’ best university in the world presumably has, and don’t do anything you think might be the kind of thing Pauley security officers might consider getting involved in.
Oh, and GO, BRUINS!