Student Section Monitors

Swaggerson

Bank Sect 112 Barn Sect 102
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In an earlier thread there was mention of the student section being somehow controlled by controlling who sits in certain rows and a few other things...can someone elaborate? I am well beyond "student age" but am disappointed to hear there are these type of things going on. The spirit comes from that section...so let them show it.
 

we were told a few years ago, by Deb Diamond, that the aptly named Thunder Sticks that had been placed on the student benches were not allowed. she apparantly got a call from the Big Ten Commish MID GAME saying that they had been banned. HAHAHAHA. it was a joke. GopherLady do you remember that????? still makes me laugh.

I wish our students were allowed to be rowdy....Buck the Fadgers yelled "you blow" once and the usher admonished him for being vulgar. I mean really.
 

we were told a few years ago, by Deb Diamond, that the aptly named Thunder Sticks that had been placed on the student benches were not allowed. she apparantly got a call from the Big Ten Commish MID GAME saying that they had been banned. HAHAHAHA. it was a joke. GopherLady do you remember that????? still makes me laugh.

I wish our students were allowed to be rowdy....Buck the Fadgers yelled "you blow" once and the usher admonished him for being vulgar. I mean really.

I do remember...but I actually think the sticks itself weren't banned, it was when you pounded them together. I guess you're only suppose to wave around the thundersticks, lol!

Monitoring the students has gotten worse and worse. When I was on the Barnyard Board, we'd fight them on a lot of things - or just do things under the table. Like the photo of Brian Butch in a bra - we made about 1000 copies of that, and about 20 posters...but had to do it without the U's funds (obviously) of them knowing. When Kelvin Sampson came here, I had a huge sign that said "Kelvin, text me." and was told that we weren't allowed to call out any player or coach individually, so I had to change it to Kelvin (and IU) text me. I can't blame our marketing people, they are just the messengers - but students getting really into the game, and giving the team a true home-court advantage is what's special in college hoops. We're certainly losing that.
 



+500000. We are by far the most neutered section in the Big 10. You see some brilliant signs/pictures (kind of like the Kevin, text me, or people with embarrassing pictures of the players) at other schools, but you NEVER, EVER see anything like that here. Closest we came is when Illinois was here last year shortly after the Blago controversy began, and some folks had some Blago masks printed up.
 

The Paint Crew doesn't allow posters with pictures of opposing players or coaches, per the team's/athletic office's request. It's just self-regulated, though. The ushers are aware of the rules, but there definitely aren't any section monitors.
 


In past years I've spent a few hours online looking up information on opposing players and making a single-page roster featuring their less stellar stats and highlighting some of their worst games. Other common personal information such as middle names, high school attended, hobbies listed on official bios on their team's sites, etc. would make it in there too.

I finally decided to share the wealth and printed about 200 copies for a non-conf game two years ago. I just ran around handing them out, and was collared within minutes by a staffer who wanted to review what I was handing out. He told me that having things like middle names and hobbies, which kids would use to single out players, was unacceptable and he walked around trying to collect all the sheets he could find. I argued to the point where I thought I might get kicked out, telling him all the information came from either ESPN.com or the opposing team's official web site. Seriously - the information came straight from the other team's sites and it was unacceptable to print and distribute? It was out there for anyone to find, I just made it accessible to those in the arena. Those same folks could have busted out their cell phones and had the information handy in less than a minute!

If that's not a sign of how vanilla they wish to make our student section, I don't know what is. And this was two years ago. It's only gotten worse IMHO.
 

The day they made me change the text on my giant cell phone from "Kelvin" to "Indiana" was a sad one (see pic). I wish the current barnyard board had more guts to bend the rules like you did in your day GL. What's the worst the administrators can do as punishment? They can't expell you or anything.

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In past years I've spent a few hours online looking up information on opposing players and making a single-page roster featuring their less stellar stats and highlighting some of their worst games. Other common personal information such as middle names, high school attended, hobbies listed on official bios on their team's sites, etc. would make it in there too.

I finally decided to share the wealth and printed about 200 copies for a non-conf game two years ago. I just ran around handing them out, and was collared within minutes by a staffer who wanted to review what I was handing out. He told me that having things like middle names and hobbies, which kids would use to single out players, was unacceptable and he walked around trying to collect all the sheets he could find. I argued to the point where I thought I might get kicked out, telling him all the information came from either ESPN.com or the opposing team's official web site. Seriously - the information came straight from the other team's sites and it was unacceptable to print and distribute? It was out there for anyone to find, I just made it accessible to those in the arena. Those same folks could have busted out their cell phones and had the information handy in less than a minute!

If that's not a sign of how vanilla they wish to make our student section, I don't know what is. And this was two years ago. It's only gotten worse IMHO.

I almost forgot about that, PLG! They used to hand out an awesome Gopher Gazette - Scott Wright started doing it, and then NateDawg took over. They also spent endless hour of research, tidbits about the players, things to chant when they're at the FT line, stats, everything. Nate and I even made a Dwayne Wade Facebook profile and would befriend all the players from other schools on it - so we could get the dish on them (this was when FB was limited to college students). After that - it fell through the cracks, and there was no content in the Gazettes...and PLG stepped up - did all that work, printed it himself...and it got stopped ASAP. That was one of the more ridiculous things - and there were a lot!

P.S. Chem E - I loved that phone poster...I felt a little inferior when I saw yours compared to mine!
 

You can count on the student section having inside info (middle names, hobbies, any misdemeanors on their records) for the Wisconsin game. Research will be done.
 



The student section needs a lot of help. "U.S.A." when a European player is shooting is not just old, it's dumb. Get some creativity.
 

The obvious answer is to share research via twitter with a hash tag like #hoopnotes. Everyone in that student section has a phone, and they aren't about to confiscate cell phones.
 

Or someone needs to create a twitter account, do the research, tweet it, and go from there. Technology always wins.
 

or students can start standing up for themselves. Ive been kicked out of two games, and it was worth it because i was able to tell the person in charge a piece of my mind
 






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