TERRY COLUMN: Chopping down the chants

It’s inescapable at any sporting event.

The away team makes a mistake and the chorus of cheers is nearly immediate.

The home stands rise up in unison to make sure the bad guys understood what they did wrong, often at the top of their lungs.

“AIRBALL! AIRBALL! AIRBALL!”

“YOU CAN’T DO THAT! (clap) (clap) (clap/clap/clap)”

Or the taunt between student sections: “WE CAN’T HEAR YOU!”

It’s everywhere: Pros, college, high schools. If there’s an event pitting two rival factions against each other, there are likely groups of people loudly taunting each other in acts of collective schadenfreude.

Wisconsin is trying to change that.

In an email sent out to member schools last month, the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association sought to remind administrators of its sportsmanship guidelines ahead of the winter season.

Rather than focus on yelling at the refs by coaches and fans, or even in-play shenanigans, the note turned its eye towards student sections and what the body deemed “unsporting behavior.”

Among improvements, it suggests keeping in check the three above chants along with other standby slogans like “Fundamentals,” and “Scoreboard,” or the hockey chants of “Sieve” to refer to a porous goaltender or “There’s a net there,” to remind said goaltender of his namesake objective. No more cheering “Season’s over,” to let your opponent know that, indeed, its season is over.

The guidelines are old and still just guidelines, but the emphasis was enough to get one student suspended when she voiced her displeasure with the new rules online.

Let’s first be clear, sportsmanship is important.

There’s also a few chants that I think could go away and nobody would miss them. Singing goodbye to an opponent to that awful tune (you know the one) can be abolished forever. And the new tradition of yelling “I believe the we will win,” while up 45 points in the second half, is also unnecessary.

But acknowledging an airball? Sarcastically pointing out the rulebook? Harmless.

Sure those chants can be considered unsportsmanlike, and in the broad sense they are. Those chants and others like them are taunting, and in the right circumstances can cause an already heated environment to boil over quickly.

In reality, they’re harmful fun. They’re a small bit of rivalry that the students and fans not on the court get to exercise.

There should be a line.

Taunting individual players shouldn’t be allowed and parents screaming for fouls set a terrible example.

Montana isn’t likely to silence its fans any time soon. And it shouldn’t.

Sports should be a place to have fun. Even when you’re in the stands.