Student Sections and the Misguided Notions of Sportsmanship

Hang on, I had just put my soapbox away. Now I've found something that requires me to drag it out again.

Please note in advance: this post will contain a little bit of NSFW language. As such, I'm putting in a jump here so that you can't read the NSFW content from the home page, but you will if you click on the link to this post itself and read it in its entirety. Normally, I wouldn't even put something in about this, but it's integral to the story and, believe it or not, I support its use both in its original context as well as in my own opinion on this story. You've been warned.

Back in November, I unleashed a full broadside attack on the NFHS for being a bunch of politically correct morons who make the jobs of public address announcers unnecessarily harder. This is one of the few athletic organizations I despise with every fiber of my being. Fortunately for them, they had nothing to do with today's post. Instead, I'm focusing my rage on one of their affiliated state organizations just up the interstate in Wisconsin.

At some point in December, the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association handed down new rules concerning chants coming from student sections. In particular, the following chants were included in an email as no longer allowed:

• “Fundamentals”
• “Sieve”
• “We can’t hear you”
• “Air ball”
• “You can’t do that”
• “There’s a net there”
• “Scoreboard”
• “Season’s over” (during tournament play)

My second cousins and other fans (Photo from Wahpeton Daily News)

Apparently according to the WIAA, the above chants "directed at opponents and/or opponents' supporters... are clearly intended to disrespect."

So, let that sink in for a minute. I'm almost nine years removed from high school, and I never heard "sieve" or "there's a net there" (the latter of which is because I only attended one Aurora Christian volleyball game), but I definitely heard and participated in every other chant listed (my personal favorite: "Let's play football!" towards the end of a losing effort, which worked during my time at Aurora Christian because the now-defunct Private School League was awful at football and Don Beebe is awesome). Aside from one overzealous parent of one of my classmates, who for a couple years was trying to put an end to these chants from our student sections for reasons I'm not entirely sure of, the school itself never prohibited this. And I say this about a school whose unofficial motto was "Skin is sin and dancing is the devil." But that's another story.

Suffice it to say, I have no problems with those banned chants. There's nothing inherently "disrespectful" about them. It's commentary on plays that are made, albeit mistakes made by the opposing team, but that does not make them "disrespectful." You want them to shut up? Play fundamentally sound, beat your opponent who's chanting, "Scoreboard," or in the case of "We can't hear you," you are engaging in chants, and thus the opposing fans have the right to give you grief about it.

I said this about the asinine "neutrality" rules set down by the NFHS, and I'm going to say it about this edict from the WIAA: this is political correctness hiding in the guise of "education" and "sportsmanship." To me, chants like the banned ones above are part of the game, and if you can't handle it, get over it and play better. I do draw certain lines, though: profanity directed at a participant is absolutely wrong, and anything discriminatory should be immediately rebuked and shut down. Those banned chants do not cross either line, and as such this is nothing more than politically correct tyranny on the part of the WIAA because they don't want people getting their poor feelings hurt.

I didn't hear about this until today, when I saw news about a senior at Hilbert High School in Hilbert, Wisconsin not far from Appleton. April Gehl is a three sport athlete at Hilbert (including basketball), and when she saw the aforementioned email handed down by the tyrants at the WIAA, she tweeted out the following (EDITOR'S NOTE: TWEET CONTAINS NSFW LANGUAGE):

EAT SHIT WIAA pic.twitter.com/hqH8TH3rgm

— April Gehl (@AprilGehl24) January 4, 2016

Photo by Danny Damiani (Post Crescent Media)

It didn't take long for the WIAA to take note of this tweet, and they may or may not have put pressure on the Hilbert administration, which suspended Gehl for five games for the tweet.

Here's where I stand on this: she absolutely deserved the suspension, though you could argue it's a little extreme. This is the same length of suspension for a drug offense, and I don't see this as being on the same level. Saying something obscene to your sport's governing body will get you into trouble though, and a message needed to be sent, but I wholeheartedly support the tweet in and of itself. Gehl is a student who is impacted by this, and she has a right to express her displeasure to the WIAA, even in a profane manner. The suspension is an understandable consequence of that action, but it doesn't abridge her First Amendment right to express that opinion.

Unfortunately, she did hurt her team with this tweet; she's her team's leading scorer, and they apparently have a tough schedule ahead. It's a lesson that I believe she's learned, but her point was also made. That tweet and the subsequent fallout has made headlines beyond the sphere of Wisconsin. She has become the face of the movement against this political correctness run amok.

Now, the WIAA has responded to the backlash, but predictably they're sticking by their stance of "sportsmanship." The argument made is that kids don't get mocked for writing the wrong answer on the board at school, as if chants in a classroom and at an athletic event are even remotely comparable. I go back to the whole thing at the NCAA Division III level. The chants are not prohibited, and the D-III level is one of the most pure in terms of focus on academics with its student-athletes, the way it should be. If it's not a problem in the NCAA, why are we making it a problem in high schools?

The WIAA is coddling its student-athletes with these guidelines. This isn't about "education" or "sportsmanship," it's about no one getting their feelings hurt. It brings me back to my point from November regarding the BS "neutrality" mandates from the NFHS: life isn't always fair. Sometimes you're going to get the benefit of things, like on your home court where the energy of the building is going to be behind you. On the flip side, sometimes you're going to feel like the whole world is against you, like when you're on the road in a tough place to play. Shutting out the noise and performing in spite of the opposing forces is an important skill in like, and when you can succeed with the odds stacked against you, shouldn't that be praised? With high school sports schedules, there's a balance as well: at home, you get the benefits; on the road, you have to go up against it. It's a fair tradeoff.

The WIAA is getting all the flak it deserves, and April Gehl is receiving a wide base of support for her stance. Hopefully, the WIAA and other high school associations take note. There is a line that fans should not cross, and I am an ardent defender of that line. The chants in question today, however, are on the right side of the line.