Why I almost got kicked out.
Outside of last year's upset win over Stanford, Saturday's overtime win over Weber State was probably the most enjoyable Griz game I've been to. The game was definitely great, but it did entail a male cheerleader getting hit in the back of the head with a Perkins mini-ball. Details after the jump.
For about three quarters of the game, the crowd was in persistent vegetative state, only making basic instinctual reactions to promotional giveaways and the halftime show. Then Matt Martin caught fire and Mike Chavez charged off the bench toss everyone into a minor frenzy.
At that point the crowd was really getting into and making a lot of noise on the defensive end, this was probably the first time all season that the students were consistently standing and trying to be involved. The problem was that things were loud on defensive end but more quiet than an empty lecture hall when our Griz on offense.
This idea of being quiet on offense is normally a good idea in football games with the timing of plays relying on snap counts that everyone on offense needs to hear, but in basketball one play is called, sometimes simply by a hand gesture, so silence isn't required.
I watched an entire afternoon of college basketball and every other fan base (UCLA, UConn, Illinois) made some noise when their team had the ball.
I tried to let the two male cheerleaders right in front of me know that they should probably do something that prevented the crowd from dying after each defensive stop and having to get back up again once the other team had the ball. They kind of ignored me and said someone told them not to. When I asked who, they had no response.
I kept on nagging them for quite some time, telling everyone to be quiet so the team could hear the snap count, things like that. After quite a bit of mocking them for not cheering on offense and being oblivious to the length of the overtime, one of the two guys took a Griz/Perkins mini-ball and said "here, put this in your mouth." I didn't think that was very clever, original or nice so once he walked away I lightly tossed it (seriously, I'm not being sarcastic, I didn't throw it) at him. It hit him right in the back of the head.
I grinned and he was pretty agitated so once he got back from his on-court prancing, he said "Bye" and, to be blunt, went and taddled on me. He plead is case to probably three different security people with none of them seeming too interested. Finally, one police officer followed him over to me and nicely said "Um, we need to make sure you don't throw any more balls." I said "no problem" and it was pretty much over.
I kind of kept laughing at cheerleader and remarked "I'm still here," which he responded to by saying "you're a sweetheart, aren't you?" I'm not really sure how it was an insult, but it was a little weirded me out in ways a normal insult couldn't.
I'm really looking forward to the next game after getting a "Hey asshole!" from him on the way to class this morning.
The point is I wasn't just some stupid drunk student who decided I was going to start throwing crap at people I didn't like. I had a reason, and I think it was a good one. If some of the best college hoops programs can cheer on offense, we should too.