The administration at the University of Virginia has decided that signs are no longer allowed inside Scott Stadium. This stems from a string of incidents in which UVA students have had signs confiscated with such phrases as “Fire Groh.”
Al Groh has been UVA’s football coach since 2000. In a press release, the UVA administration claimed their action was to “promote sportsmanship and a positive gameday environment.” Perhaps more telling and ominous was when athletic department spokesman Rich Murray claimed “we won’t be the last school to do this.”
The administration did not count on the college students to be, as always, creative and officious. Last weekend during the game against Richmond, UVA students held up plain white pieces of paper after each five minutes of game time, which was Sure to anger the administration. UVA was caught speechless. They had not actually defined what a sign entailed in their draconian declaration, thus they were caught in the position where they surely could not punish anyone for sending a direct message while not saying anything.
But Virginia is missing a key point in trying to approach this as a sportsmanship issue. College football signs are mostly positive like “Dixon 4 Heisman” or “Croom for President.” Yes, there are negative signs, but most negative signs are creative and humorous; an Oklahoma fan made it clear last season “LSU can bleaux me,” and as one Duke fan held two years ago, “Basketball season starts in 35 days.”
Signs are one of the most entrenched elements of college football and indeed any sport. Nearly every college football fan at sometime has come up with a back-ronym for ESPN, CBS or ABC.
High School football stadiums are draped with banners – it’s just part of the game’s charm.
Political correctness is ruining that charm. A few years ago in Alabama, Shades Valley High School’s football team ran onto the field under the banner “Vaccinate the Vikings” for their game against the Huffman Vikings. The administration at Valley had decided that vanquish was too strong of a term for a football game; and after settling on keeping alliteration, went with the apparently more politically correct “vaccinate,” implying that the opposition were at risk of disease and should be helped in lieu of just ending their suffering.
Soccer arenas are always wallpapered with signs, most of which are much more cruel than anything seen in Scott Stadium. In 1986 Diego Maradonna lead southern Italian club SC Napoli to the Italian national soccer title. As the title got closer and closer, opponents’ fans got increasingly short tempered. A trip to Northern Italian industrial center Turin late in the season had fans hold up banners saying “Welcome to Italy,” referencing the cultural divide between the industrial North and agrarian South.
It is clear that the UVA officials take issue not with what the signs say, they just want control. The administration deemed towels in UVA’s deplorable shade of orange to be part of the positive gameday environment. The UVA athletic department held an “orange out” when they gave orange “rally towels” to each attendee of their home opener versus Southern Cal.
Virginia is coming off a nine win season, its third under Al Groh. So wanting Groh fired may be a little extreme, but the misguided opener to UVA’s “Power of Orange” campaign saw USC stomp them 52-7. Perhaps a more positive gameday experience would include not losing by 45 at home.
Paul Kimbrough is a senior majoring in biological engineering. He can be reached at
[email protected].